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4 






Lillian’S Lovers 

(THE SPEAKER OE THE HOUSE) 


A NOVEL 


BY 

ANGELINE TEAL , 


Absence destroys trifling intimacies, but it invigorates strong ones .” — Rochefoucald 



Copyright 1894 by Laird & Lee. 


Copyright 1897 by Wm. H. Lee. 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


CHAPTER I 

The capital of a state is, in many essential 
respects, a reduced copy of the national capital. 
The machinery of government is the sentient 
soul of the city, and the various departments, 
legislative, executive and judicial, send the elec- 
tric currents of their active life through every 
avenue of business and society. As years pass, 
these capital cities develop new features, be- 
coming educational or manufacturing centers, 
but the convening of the legislature, and the in- 
auguration of a new governor continue to be 
their distinguishing events, in which, as cities, 
they never lose interest. 

When sturdy Luke Townley took the oath of 
office which made him chief of a great common- 
wealth, a change of administration in both nation 
and state inspired with a new and eager life that 
strange organism, the body politic. The fourth 
5 


6 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


of January was a day of wind and snow, but at 
the inaugural there was an immense assemblage 
of spectators, interested, curious or idle. The 
ceremonies of the hour took place in the rotunda 
of the Capitol, one of the finest state buildings 
on the continent. The national colors wreathed 
the marble columns, and hung in heavy festoons 
from balustrade and frieze. 

Above the heads of the group assembled on 
the rostrum, hung from an eagle’s talons the great 
seal of the commonwealth, done in gold on a 
broad field of heavy turquoise satin. The noted 
Third Infantry Band, and a band from the in- 
coming governor’s home town showered music 
alternately, upon the waiting assemblage, till at 
a certain signal, the two houses of the legislature 
moved from their respective chambers. A 
glimpse of the procession could be had from the 
lower court, as the men filed along a high cor- 
ridor on the farther side of the rotunda. They 
were reduced in size and looked like an animated 
fresco, so great are the distances in this mag- 
nificent building. 

Presently the senators and representatives en- 
tered in pairs, and took the seats reserved for 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


7 


them in front of the rostrum. Then the oath was 
administered by Judge Bainbridge, following 
which the new governor read his inaugural ad- 
dress. He spoke to the General Assembly, 
scheduling the winter’s work before them. It 
was a strong paper, terse and to the point. At 
its close, comments upon the man and his speech 
were in free circulation. Citizens of the city 
and visitors from a distance united in commend- 
ing Governor Townley’s evident honesty of pur- 
pose. 

At the close of the governor’s address, the 
lieutenant governor was sworn, and read his 
inaugural, a brief and somewhat humorous essay. 
Then the out-going ex-governor made a short 
speech full of kindness and good will, and the 
ceremonies of the afternoon were over. 

While the crowd was still pouring out of the 
State House doors, workmen appeared upon 
the scene, ready to remove the staging and 
seats, and clear the wide, tesselated floor, for 
the inaugural ball that night. 

Most of the members of the new legislature 
were present at the ball. Many of them were 
first termers, standing about awkwardly enough, 


8 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


in their suits of business cut, and thick shoes, all 
glaringly new. But the most unfortunate and 
really unhappy personage at this public function 
is the wife of the new country member. As the 
tiresome evening wears on, she is able to think 
of but one compensating feature of the situa- 
tion — the fact of the social superiority which she 
will in future enjoy. This will be tacitly ac- 
corded to her by her neighbors on account of 
her having spent a week or two at the seat of 
government, and participated in its bewildering 
gaieties. 

Inside the ring of interested though weary 
spectators, was a splendid floor for dancing, and 
scores of elegant couples wound in and out 
amongst each other, to the strains of witching 
waltz-music. The dancers rested from time to 
time on the stairs. Those wide stairways became 
glowing pastures of human flowers. Such bloom 
and brightness! Such dazzling smiles! Such 
bewildering effects of stylish dress and dainty 
coiffure! 

It is a western scene we are looking upon, but 
it is not on that account “wild and woolly.” 
There is an invisible meridian on the great seas, 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


9 


where the east ends and the west begins; but 
the waves do not feel it, as a barrier. No more 
are the ever-changing currents of social life in 
this great republic conscious of degrees of longi- 
tude. The boor and the scholar jostle each 
other across the width of the continent. So 
do the satin-shod dame, with her liveried serv- 
ants, and the educated and thoroughly respect- 
able wife of the day-laborer; and a process of 
rapid social evolution, as remarkable as the won- 
ders of electricity, has appeared to startle the 
onlookers of other countries. 

A large and handsomely appointed parlor was 
comprised in the governor’s suite of rooms, and 
there the new Executive received the members 
of the Assembly and the public at large, that 
January night. He stood near the center of the 
room, a tall, rosy, silver-haired man of sixty, 
supported by a little group of men and ladies. 

At his right stood his married daughter, Mrs. 
Froude, and her next friend, Miss Norgate. 

Of the gentlemen in the receiving party, the 
one who would especially challenge attention 
was Bruce Fontaine, the just elected speaker of 
the house. That he was a prime favorite with 


lO THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 

the governor could readily be guessed, and there 
was something fine in the dignified yet cordial 
deference which characterized the manner of the 
younger man toward the elder. Mr. Fontaine, 
as a prominent attorney, had a somewhat exten- 
sive acquaintance throughout the State. He 
knew something about the majority of the sen- 
ators and representatives, and as they came up 
to shake the governor’s hand, he could name 
them promptly, and would sometimes add a 
word of contemporaneous history. 

“Mr. Collins, Governor, comes up this session, 
as a joint from Wells and Tyburn.” And again: 

“Mr. Vigo is the gentleman who rescued old 
Hartley County from the enemy, two years ago, 
you remember.” 

For an hour or two in the early part of the 
evening, Fontaine assisted in this manner. Then 
he yielded his place to another gentleman, a 
large, well-made man, with a genial, open face, 
a fluent tongue and a manner somewhat nervous 
and mercurial in contrast with the speaker’s 
quiet dignity. Mr. McNulty was a lawyer, resi- 
dent in the capital, and represented a city dis- 
trict in the Assembly. 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


II 


When Fontaine signaled him, he had himself 
just received an ocular telegram from Miss 
Norgate. She had disengaged herself from the 
receiving party, and was standing near the parlor 
door, when Fontaine left the governor’s side. 
He went to her and offered his arm; she placed 
her hand in it and steered straight in the direc- 
tion of the dancers. He hung back slightly, 
saying with a low laugh: 

‘‘Edith, you are too bad! Possibly you have 
heard something like this — ‘You may lead a horse 
to water, but you can not make him drink!’’’ 

“Fie, Bruce!” the lady exclaimed. “You re- 
member what you said, that night in August, by 
the sad sea waves — if we got the president and 
the governor, and you got the speakership, you 
would dance with me at this ball.” 

“But it seems ridiculous. There are so many 
people here who know I never dance. Indeed 
I have forgotten how.” 

“I’ll risk it. There are some things one never 
forgets.” He laughed again, half in vexation. 
They drew nearer and nearer to the charmed 
circle. The girl’s foot caught the rhythm of the 
music. At the right time he laid his hand upon 


12 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


her waist, and they glided into the maze of 
whirling couples. It was a proud moment for 
Edith Norgate. 

For those at the ball, who wished to indulge 
in a little quiet talk, no place was better than 
the state library. The room was softly lighted, 
the electric rays falling through tinted globes, 
and losing themselves in book-lined alleys and 
transepts. Two ladies occupied easy chairs 
near the entrance. They were beautiful middle- 
aged ladies, with faultless toilets, gracefully 
rounded wrists and slender hands, and gray hair 
curling softly above clear, unlined foreheads. 

They were speaking of Mr. Fontaine. A few 
minutes before, he had entered the library with 
Miss Ncrgate. They had chatted awhile with 
Mrs. Eberly, a candidate for state librarian, and 
the three had gone out together, probably to the 
refreshment room. 

“I never expected to see Bruce Fontaine in a 
place of gaiety like this,’^ said Mrs. Colby, wife 
of one of the supreme judges. “He has danced 
several times to-night, once with your sister. It 
seems so strange, when for years he has declined 
to take the place in society which always stands 
open to him, both here and at Colton. 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


13 


“I think,” said Mrs. Hollis, “if Miss Norgate 
takes him in hand, he will be seen at parties in 
future. She seems to assume command of him 
to-night.” 

“His prominence would make her wish to do 
that,” Mrs. Colby remarked. “His election to 
the speakership was a sort of triumph. The 
judge says the matter was hotly contested, the 
majority side of the House caucusing for two 
days and nights.” 

“She likes to garland the hero, and lead him 
by the garland.” 

“Yes,” said Mrs. Colby, “but the hero is not 
used to chains, even of roses.” A little later 
she drifted out on a sea of narrative. 

“I shall never forget that night, nine years 
ago, when Mrs. Fontaine died. It was a dread- 
ful scene! They were both so young, she only 
nineteen and he a boy of three-and-twenty. She 
had not been quite well, and had been under the 
care of Madame Sylvestre, a doctress who used 
to live on Baker street. The girl listened wholly 
to her mother and aunt, and they kept Bruce in 
total ignorance of everything. When that night 
of- terror came, and I was called in as a discreet 


14 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


neighbor, and the family physician was sum- 
moned, and Mrs. Lombard went wild with grief 
when they told her Louise was dying — then the 
whole truth flashed upon the boy in an instant. 
Such words of righteous wrath as he hurled at 
those stricken women, when all was over! They 
had killed his wife, they and the heartless social 
order to which they belonged. Mrs. Lombard 
cried: 

“‘Have you no pity, Bruce.^' And he replied: 

“ ‘No, only curses for those who have per- 
suaded my innocent girl to her death!' 

“I fairly dragged him from the room, and then 
when alone with me, he broke down sobbing. I 
tried to soften his anger against the mother, by 
telling him I believed she really thought Louise 
too young and delicate for the cares of maternity. 

“ ‘Then,’ said he, ‘she should have opposed 
the marriage, or forbidden it. She did neither. ’ 

“I soothed him, as one does an angry, injured 
child, and he has always looked at me since that 
night, with a strange look, pathetic and remem- 
bering.’^ 

“Where are the Lombards, now.^”’ asked Mrs. 
Hollis. 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


15 


“In California, I believe, Mrs. Lombard fell 
into bad health some three years ago, and they 
left the city. Fontaine never spoke to her, after 
the day of his wife’s funeral, till just before they 
went away. She sent for him, and they parted 
with a semblance of friendliness.” 

“She was a shallow, selfish woman, ’’said Mrs. 
Hollis, “incapable of understanding the man 
whose youth she spoiled.” 

“His youth was spoiled,” said Mrs. Colby 
earnestly. “The effect upon his character, of 
that early bereavement, or rather of the circum- 
stances attending it, was most unfortunate. For 
a long time he was very morose and cynical, and 
my husband says his distrust of women, and in 
particular his hatred of society women, has many 
a time been apparent in his law-practice. So 
you can understand my surprise at seeing him 
in a ball-room.” 

“He may marry again.” 

“In that case,” said Mrs. Colby, “it will be 
Edith Norgate, and she will marry him.” 


CHAPTER II. 


“I wonder if any of those farmer-looking men 
ever dance. If they ever did, they cannot to- 
night, on account of their shoes.” 

“What made you think of that.? Should you 
like one of them for a partner.?” 

“Not particularly; indeed not at all. But one 
gets so tired of boys, and all the best dancers 
seem to be boys.” 

The boy to whom she spoke laughed good- 
naturedly 

“You are the oddest girl! You always say 
just what you think.” 

“I’m afraid I do. Everybody says so, and 
say it as though it was a little worse than odd. 
I can’t see why.” 

The speaker was a girl of three and twenty, 
with large eyes set in a rather dark face, whose 
striking peculiarity was its fluctuating color. 
The peachy bloom of the cheeks would not stay, 
but now and then disappeared, leaving the soft 
16 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


17 


brunette skin quite pale, relieved only by those 
glowing eyes and scarlet lips. Hair of an in- 
describable shade of brown, which likewise 
changed with every changing light, was parted 
in a distinct white line from crown to forehead; 
from this line it curled and rippled back into a 
loose Grecian knot. She wore a gown of lemon- 
yellow silk with garnitures of black lace. 

Her companion, Mr. Clarence Vanderlip, was 
a handsome, blond youth, faultlessly dressed, 
from his tie of creamy crepe to the toe of his 
patent leather dancing-shoe. 

“Yonder comes a fellow old enough for you,’* 
said Vanderlip. 

“Who is he.^” she asked. 

“Mr. Fontaine, the new speaker of the house. 
My uncle is going to introduce him to you.” 

The two gentlemen approached, and both ad- 
dressed young Vanderlip familiarly; then the 
elder man. Colonel Hoyt, introduced the speaker 
to Miss Lillian Crandall. A few commonplaces 
about the ball were exchanged, and then Fon- 
taine asked: 

“Have you a vacant number on your card. 
Miss Crandall 

The Speaker of the House 


l8 THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 

She replied, with her usual naive frankness: 

‘‘Oh, yes, quite a number of them; the next 
one, indeed.’’ 

And he reached for the dainty booklet dan- 
gling from her fan, and wrote his name against a 
waltz, the music for which began almost imme- 
diately. 

“There is a charming girl in the governor’s 
parlor, whom I wish you to know, Clarence my 
boy,” said bustling little Colonel Hoyt. 

With a low bow, the youth resigned Lillian 
to her new partner, and went off with his uncle. 
The dance ended; other partners claimed Lillian, 
and presently she again found herself with Clar- 
ence Vanderlip. 

“Could he dance— your grown-up partner.?” he 
asked. 

“Gloriously!” she exclaimed. “I shall tell sis- 
ter that for once in my life I have waltzed with 
a man. He is quite bald. How old is he, should 
you think.?” 

Vanderlip laughed merrily. 

“You speak as if he might be sixty. And he 
isn’t bald at all, only his top locks look a little 
thin. I believe he is not much past thirty; but 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


19 


he has been prominent in state politics for sev- 
eral years, and has always been spoken of as a 
hopeless bachelor or widower, I don’t know 
which,” 

“He dances well, for a man out of practice,” 
said Lillian. “He told me this was his first ball 
in years. Now, Clarence, you may take me to 
sister for a little while. I think we will find her 
in the State library, with Mrs. Colby.” 

They reached the library door, and there 
Vanderlip became entangled in a snarl of pretty 
girls. Lillian spied her sister, Mrs. Hollis, and 
dropped into a deep leathern chair just behind 
her, without challenging her attention. 

Sitting there for a few moments’ rest, she over- 
heard the story of Fontaine’s early bereavement. 

Fontaine himself discovered that night that the 
blood of youth was still in his veins. The early 
goers had all gone, when Miss Norgate said to 
him: 

“The governor is holding a brief, secret ses- 
sion in his office. He asked me to send you 
there.” 

The speaker laughed and turned the other 
way. 


20 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


“Fve been dancing, and it has gone to my 
head. Til not go into caucus to-night/^ 

‘‘But he really told me to send you.’' 

“All the same I do not feel like going. Edith, 
aren’t you crowding matters a little.^ Fm with 
the governor heartily in this pet scheme of his, 
as I believe Fve told you before,” 

“But you should assure him of the fact. You 
should make him know that if he gains what he 
wishes, it will be largely through your influence.” 

“What’s the use, so he gains his wish.?” 

“Bruce, you are dull. Now to-night, by a 
word or two, you could volunteer your cham- 
pionship in this matter, which he has so much 
at heart, and by so doing take a place in his re- 
gard that might be of endless use to you in 
future.” 

“I may be dull,” he said dryly, “but I have 
understood you from the first. I have no desire 
to place a price, even of gratitude, upon what I 
am determined to do, to please myself, and be- 
cause I think it fitting. Now, let us find little 
Eberly, if she is still here, and see whether she 
is provided with a proper escort.” 

Before long, the last carriage rolled away 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


21 


from the Capitol grounds and the ball was 
over. 

The new speaker found that the formation of 
his standing committees was no slight task. 
There was a goodly number of second and third 
termers with whom he was somewhat acquainted, 
this being his second term. There was, how- 
ever, a considerable proportion of new men, of 
whose gifts and capabUities he knew nothing. 
He honestly wished to organize the assembly in 
the best possible working order. He also wished 
to reward with a congenial chairmanship apiece, 
several men, who had been instrumental in turn- 
ing the battle for the speakership in his favor. 
And he desired, moreover, to show himself a 
magnanimous victor, by giving a choice of places 
to Maddox of Lambert, his most formidable 
opponent in the contest. 

Strangely enough, Fontaine’s nearest friend, 
the member of the house whom he liked best 
personally, belonged to the minority, and prom- 
ised to be its leader. John Atwater could talk 
well, and not too much. He was a physician 
who had farmed out his practice for two win- 
ters that he might push in the legislature a 


22 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


single measure. His heart was set upon the 
enactment of a law which would make it im- 
possible for courts to compel physicians to tes- 
tify as experts, on the footing of ordinary wit- 
nesses. He had been committed for contempt, 
suffered fines, and temporary imprisonment for 
defying the courts in this matter. He said: 

am here now to fight for my bill and see it 
through, if eloquence, intimidation or corruption 
can get it passed.’’ 

Atwater was sure of the committee on state 
medicine. After that he did not care much 
where he served. 

He was a thick-set man of medium height, 
with a fresh-colored face and side-whiskers. 
He gave his soft brown hair a middle parting 
and wore a pair of nose-glasses dangling from a 
cord in his button-hole. He and Fontaine had 
been classmates for two years in a fresh-water 
college. Both left at the same time and for the 
same reason. It was Atwater who had said: 

“We have a fair stock of history and mathe- 
matics, and Greek enough to help us out on 
nomenclature. Now I am going to Rush, to 
take the full course and collaterals; and you can 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


23 


go to the Old Harry, or a law-school, which last 
rd advise.’^ 

Fontaine had thought of the same thing — that 
is, giving the classical diploma the go by; and 
he was prompt to act on his friend’s suggestion 

They were in Chicago together for a year. 
Then Fontaine met and suddenly married the 
daughter of a prominent lawyer in his own cap- 
ital and was taken into his father-in-law’s busi- 
ness, as junior partner. Such an office as Mr. 
Lombard’s was better than a dozen law-schools. 
No young man ever had fairer prospects. Bruce 
was talented and industrious, and Mr. Lombard 
regarded him admiringly, as a son-in-law of 
whom he would one day feel proud. Then fol- 
lowed the sudden, painful death of Fontaine’s 
wife, and the young man broke with the family 
and left the city. 

He settled in one of the large river towns and 
worked. He visited his parents at the old farm 
once a year. For the rest, his life was made up 
of work. When he was not in the courts, he 
was at his briefs or his books. When he next 
came to the capital to remain for a term of 
weeks, it was as a representative in the legisla*^ 


24 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


ture. His plans were formed, and from the start he 
took an active part in the House. He was quick 
as light, and had many of the qualities of leader- 
ship. Parliamentary law was part of the fur- 
niture of his rather remarkable memory, and 
before the end of his first term he was more 
than once called upon to preside temporarily at 
the speaker's desk. At the beginning of his sec- 
ond term, he made a fight for the speakership 
and won it. It was a step toward congress or a 
good judgeship, he had not decided which. 

Atwater had never married. He resided in an 
old city in the interior, which had once been a 
military post, and had since enjoyed a steady 
commercial growth. His practice was large, and 
his life fully and pleasantly occupied. 

The two friends stood for a few moments in 
the cloak-room of the representatives' hall, on 
the Monday morning following the inaugural 
ceremonies. All of Saturday, and we grieve to 
say, part of Sunday, had been devoted by Fon- 
taine to the business of arranging committees. 
He had availed himself of Atwater's counsel to 
a greater extent than the leaders of his own 
party were aware; and this brief conference in 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


25 


the cloak-room was in reference to the same 
business. Just before the hour for opening 
struck, Atwater said: 

“I have taken a great liberty, Fontaine, count- 
ing on your good-nature to excuse it. Yester - 
day I met Bishop Haliburton, and invited him 
to read prayers in the house this morning. I 
gave the invitation as coming from you. I 
thought very likely the subject of a chaplain had 
escaped your thought ; and as this is our first 
regular working day, I was anxious that it should 
open with due form and rightly. Then, too, it 
will probably be our only opportunity to have 
the bishop’s services.’’ 

Fontaine expressed his pleasure at the arrange- 
ment, and said: 

“There is the bishop now.” 

The tvvo men went forward to meet him, and 
Doctor Atwater introduced his friend the speaker. 
As the bishop removed his broad hat and over- 
coat, and gave them to a door-keeper, Atwater 
entered the hall where, most of the members 
were already in their places, and passing quickly 
to the table of the reading-clerk, he obtained the 
attention of the assembly which rose and stood, 


26 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


quiet and reverent, while Fontaine, accompanied 
by the church dignitary, walked up the center 
aisle to the speaker’s desk. 


CHAPTER III 


The — th assembly, like all previous assem- 
blies, was largely composed of farmers. Most 
of them were men of solid property. Some were 
men of shrewd intelligence and sound judgment, 
and, by so much, fitted for the place they had 
been called to fill. Many were illiterate and 
capable only of voting. A few of the more slow- 
witted were unqualified for the intelligent per- 
formance of that function. They were all right, 
when the yeas and nays were called, if their in- 
itial letters stood low enough in the alphabet, so 
that they could hear how certain others of their 
party voted, from whom they had decided to 
take their cue; otherwise they were always at 
sea. Atwater had his double ; so had Maddox 
and McNulty. 

Mr. Breck, of Stillwell County was a farmer. 
He was, moreover, a well-informed and clear- 
headed member, On one of the first days of 
!}7 


28 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


the session, he approached Fontaine with a 
peculiar, quizzical look, and remarked: 

“You haven’t asked me yet, Mr. Speaker, upon 
what committee I’d like a place. Now, if it’s 
just the same to you, put me on the judiciary. 
There s a hole that a pile of bills gets dropped 
into, and I’d like to have a chance to see where 
they go to.^’ 

“The committee on judiciary is usually made 
up of gentlemen in the legal profession,’’ said 
Fontaine, with a smile. 

“Well,” said Breck, “Fm not a lawyer, nor 
the son of a lawyer, but I’ve been a justice of 
the peace for twenty years, and I’ve read a good 
deal of common law. I think I’d do for that 
committee.” 

“So do I,” said the speaker. 

He was not certain whether the farmer was in 
earnest or not, but he broke in upon precedent, 
and gave him a place on the judiciary commit- 
tee. 

From the start, Mr. Fontaine showed his 
courage to defy precedent, and act on his indi- 
vidual judgment. He had ambitious aims, but 
ambition was not all-powerful. With him the 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


29 


work in hand was the greatest thing in the world, 
to be executed upon honor, and with tireless 
energy. 

His peculiarly vigorous nature was evidenced 
in his physique. In figure he was slightly above 
medium height, well-knit and deep-chested, with 
a fine head carried well up, and a face whose 
aquiline firmness was softened by the light in his 
hazel eyes and the contours of his cleft chin and 
finely modeled mouth. The latter feature suf- 
fered the disfigurement of a heavy mustache, a 
shade lighter than his brown hair. His move- 
ments were quick and decided. The man of 
forceful action spoke through step and gesture. 

From the moment of his first lifting the gavel, 
at the spea ker’s desk, his command of the house 
was absolute. His voice rang out, in clear, 
agreeable tones, with an enunciation peculiarly 
distinct and free from hesitation. He mastered 
the “plot” of the assembly — that is, the names, 
faces and seats of the members, as correspond- 
ing with the counties and districts which they 
represented — without difficulty or delay, and his 
rulings from first to last were unimpeachable. 

“We have a speaker to be proud of,” said an 


30 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


elderly business man, who represented a mining 
county, to the lieutenant governor, as the two 
met at the door of the elevator. 

“That's more than the upper house can say,” 
chuckled the toothless old president of the sen- 
ate, who had aimed at the governorship and 
missed, and treated his present position as a 
sort of joke. 

Late on Friday afternoon of the session's first 
week, a page handed Mr. Fontaine a letter. 
The superscription was in a bold hand, but 
Bruce knew it to be that of a woman. He laid 
the letter down till after the house adjourned, 
then opened the large, rough envelope before 
he left his place. 

“If you would like to bid me good-bye, come 
this evening, about eight. I should like to see 
you again. Tuesday was the last time; but you 
have been tremendously rushed with affairs, and 
I excuse you. I go home to-night. Father is 
ill and I am needed. 

“E. N.” 

He thought hurriedly over his engagements. 
They were enough to fill every hour that even- 
ing, but something must be set aside for this. 


THE . SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 3I 

Passing down the aisle, he stopped his friend 
McNulty at the door and said: 

“That matter of yours, Mack — it was to have 
been settled to-night. I intended to have a talk 
with Wainwright (the chief door-keeper) about 
putting your man on the force, but I cannot 
meet him as I planned. Something else has 
come up. But go yourself, and say for me — 
anything you please, that will help your cause.*' 

“Anything that is the truth," said McNulty. 
“Do you know, Bruce, Fd not like to mix your 
name up with any of the stock lies pertaining to 
this business. For myself, I don’t mind." 

“Much obliged," laughed Fontaine, and the 
other man continued: 

“This door-keeping humbug is getting to be 
an insufferable nuisance. Now, if Wainwright 
even consents to take on little Totten, what is 
there for him to do.^ There’s a man on each 
side of every door in the edifice now." 

“And no more spaces where doors could be put 
in," said Fontaine. McNulty pointed to the 
brass rail that enclosed the floor proper of the 
hall, from the space around, and said: 

“Fve an idea. There might be a section cut 


32 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


out of the rail at this end of that aisle, and a 
sliding gate made, of a yard of gas-pipe. Tot- 
cen could tend that, and earn his five dollars a 
day. But it’s all right, Bruce, about your see- 
ing Wainwright, or rather not seeing him. And 
it’s all right, whatever happens. I’ll see you 
to-night, about twelve, at the Helicon. 

He was of Irish blood, well built and hand- 
some, with quick motions and expressive blue 
eyes, which were either dancing with mirth or 
emitting sparks of satiric fire. As he talked with 
Fontaine, the latter observed a peculiar excite- 
ment about the man, which he well understood. 
He called after him, as he turned away. 

‘H say, Mack, what are you going to do to- 
night.? Remember old Groom’s last words.” 

‘‘Faith, I’ve smiled to myself over ^em a 
dozen times to-day; and I’ll not forget.” 

He laughed, as he shook himself into his over- 
coat and turned up its collar of rich fur, but the 
laugh was not a heartsome one. 

If Mr. Fontaine was not a society man, he had 
the tastes, in matters of toilet, that are sup- 
posed to characterize the more sensible and 
conservative of that class. He never adopted 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


33 


the fads of the “chappies,” but the regulations 
as to day and evening dress which good form 
approves, were never too great a tax upon his 
time and patience. The refreshment of a bath, 
after his day’s work, was as necessary to him 
as his dinner, and a systematic though not fussy 
care of his person, was with him part of the 
program of existence. 

While the freshness of his attire on that Fri- 
day evening seemed to him merely proper and 
comfortable, it struck Edith Norgate as some- 
thing more. So many men had called upon 
her, during the past week, bearing with them 
the odors, and even the dust of offices and hotel 
reading-rooms, that his appearance pointed a 
most agreeable contrast. 

Edith’s father, Mr. Alexander Norgate, was 
the proprietor and nominal editor of one of the 
strongest political newspapers in the State. But 
it had come to be an open secret that much of 
the brilliant writing that made the Hillhurst 
Times to be quoted throughout the west, was 
the work of his daughter Edith. She and Bruce 
Fontaine were old time friends. Their families 
had been country neighbors, and the two were 

The Speaker of the House 3 


34 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


playmates and schoolmates in childhood, being, 
within a month or two, the same age. 

They had always seen a good deal of each 
other, except during the years when Bruce was 
away at school, and afterwards while he was in 
Judge Lombard’s office. 

After Fontaine lost his wife and left the capi- 
tal, he took up his residence in the river town 
of Colton. His law-practice took him often into 
the adjoining counties, and in one of their flour- 
ishing cities, also on the river, Edith Norgate 
edited the Hillhurst Times. Her acquaintance 
with current politics was very complete, both as 
to its theory, which is one thing, and its prac- 
tice, which is very often another. Fontaine did 
not pretend ignorance of the fact that he owed 
his nomination as joint representative for the 
two counties of Kirby and Hillhurst, in large 
measure, to the Hillhurst Times. And to the 
Times he was also indebted for the very hand- 
some majority with which he carried the elec- 
tion. He could not forget those temperate, 
calmly persuasive and irresistibly convincing 
leaders, which made it impossible for the read- 
ing men of the district to give their votes for 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 35 

assemblyman to any other than Bruce Fon- 
taine. After the election, when he tried to thank 
Edith for what she had done for him, she an- 
swered curtly: 

“The work was its own reward. I like to do 
good things in journalism, and see them succeed. 
And after all, I think the result would have been 
the same if the Times had kept silent/’ 

And he responded: 

“It pleases me to believe you, for it lightens a 
sense of service received, which I do not know 
how to repay.” 

“Oh, you shall repay me, all right enough” 
she said, laughingly, “first by starting in for the 
speakership and getting it; then by doing for 
me several other things which your position will 
enable you to do.” 

She went to the capital a week before the 
opening of the session, and from her quiet 
corner in a friend’s house, watched the mus- 
tering of the clans, and the contest for the 
chieftainship. The stamping, smoking, vocifer- 
ating hordes that thronged the hotels, were 
reached more than once by her subtle influence, 
though they knew it not. Her acquaintance with 


36 THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 

the governor elect, whose married daughter was 
her intimate friend, was one of the agencies she 
employed to benefit Fontaine. 

When Mr. Fontaine called upon her that night, 
he found Edith dressed, not for a journey, but 
as for a reception. She was a fair young woman, 
of medium height, with a figure whose contours 
were symmetrically and delicately rounded, with- 
out a superfluous ounce of nature’s padding. 
She had a complexion like a healthy blond girl 
of fifteen, blue eyes with dark brows and lashes, 
and an abundance of light hair, worn high on 
her shapely head. She dressed in black a great 
deal, as being always elegant, and to her very 
becoming. 

“I am glad you are gotten up so nicely,” she 
said to Bruce, as she welcomed him, “for I am 
going to take you with me to the Silver Salver.'' 

“I thought you were going home,” he said, 
“but this does not look much like it,” sweeping 
his hand toward her gown of lace over satin. 

“O, I am surely going, between now and day- 
light. But this club-meeting had slipped my 
mind, till an hour ago, when I received a note 
from the president, begging me to attend. I have 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


37 


been a non-resident member for two j'ears, and 
in that time have attended two meetings.” 

She noticed a slightly rueful expression on 
Fontaine’s face, and continued: 

“Don’t look bored. You’ll enjoy it. The club 
is entirely unconventional, even Bohemian in its 
character. The membership consists of people 
who have done something with brush or pen or 
fiddle-bow — artists, writers and musicians.” 

“But I am neither.” 

“So you could not be a member; but you can 
attend through my invitation, and I guess you 
will. It isn’t in you to refuse me anything to- 
night,” and she flashed him a brilliant smile. 

“You are right, Edith,” he responded. “I feel 
like swearing fealty to you on my bended knees. 
Ask of me what you will, and it shall be done.” 

“Then button these stupid gloves. It is the 
one thing for which I have no patience.” 

He took each shapely wrist in his hand, and 
buttoned the gloves, deftly, yet deliberately. 

“Thank you,” she said, when he had finished. 
“And now, as this seems to be a good time to 
prefer requests, I wish you to put matters in 
line, in the House, to have Mrs. Eberly ap- 


38 THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 

pointed state librarian. She is capable and 
worthy and it will please the governor.” 

“You seem at all times anxious to please the 
governor,” Fontaine remarked. She answered 
dryly: 

“It is well to have people pleased. Mrs. 
Eberly is a widow, with two young children. 
She understands library work, and she is the 
daughter of Governor Townley’s old friend and 
law-partner.” 

“To please you and the governor, yes,” said 
Fontaine; “but to put a woman in a State office, 
no is my feeling.” 

“Bruce, I am ashamed of you!” 

“O, well, if you are I am sorry,” he continued. 
“I am sorry for Mrs. Eberly, that she should 
need and want an office. She shall have it, if I 
can help her to it, but just the same I wish she 
did not want it. I wish no woman with young 
children had to take upon themselves duties so 
alien to domesticity.” 

It came from him as a sort of outburst. Edith 
was silent, with a pained look on her face. 

“We do not always see or feel alike,” he went 
on, “much as we have in common. Now there 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


39 


is a certain incongruity about our relations to 
each other, which you seem utterly unconscious 
of, but which I never forget. We are good 
comrades, like two young men; yet you are not 
a young man.” 

“I’m precious glad of it!” she broke out petu- 
lantly. “They are a lot of top-lofty prigs, or 
boorish, conceited cads!” 

He laughed gleefully. 

“There was nothing young-mannish about that, 
but quite the reverse, even to the suspicion of 
a hysterical tear. Edith, you are a jolly good 
fellow, but I like you less as an editor than as 
a girl.” 

“Nice gratitude, that. ” 

“O, I am grateful enough, painfully so, in- 
deed. You shall have your little librarian, and 
the dear governor shall have the pristine glory 
of his office restored to him, if I can help to 
effect it. But you forget that I am not the 
legislature.” 

“You are,” she rejoined, “an important mem- 
ber of it, as you very well know; and if there is 
anything I hate worse than another in a man, it 
is an affectation of self-disparagement.” 


40 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


They were in the carriage she had ordered, to 
take them to the rooms of the Silver Salver 
Club. She was still half offended, and when 
she spoke there was a tremor in her voice. She 
sat withdrawn from him, in the scented warmth 
of her rich furs. He felt a perverse desire to 
hurt her again, to make her cry indeed, and then 
take her in his arms. He wondered at his own 
mad impulses. 


CHAPTER IV 


The club-room was in a vast, hip-roofed 
wooden structure, which looked like an old Penn- 
sylvania mill. Its exterior had been preserved 
unchanged, just as it had stood since forty years 
before, when it was the church in which a young 
man began his ministerial work, who afterwards 
became one of America’s greatest preachers. 
Inside, it had been divided into stories and 
rooms; but the light still entered through the 
old fashioned, small-paned windows. 

When Fontaine and Miss Norgate arrived, the 
room was already fairly well filled with people 
sitting or standing about in groups. On the 
walls were some excellent paintings. In one 
corner stood a piano; in another a high cup- 
board of red-stained cherry wood, which looked 
as though it might have come from some farm- 
house kitchen, in the neighborhood of the mill 
after which the church had been modeled. This 
piece of furniture the club people called the 
41 


42 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


buffet. Some pretty china showed through the 
glass doors of its upper half. Below, the shelves 
were deeper, and the doors of solid wood. 

A little crowd gathered around Edith. Fon- 
taine was introduced and welcomed cordially. 

Looking across toward the door, he saw At- 
water enter, and with him the tall brunette to 
whom Colonel Hoyt had presented him on the 
night of the inaugural ball. Edith saw the 
couple at the same moment and said: 

“There is your friend, Doctor Atwater. He 
is a non-resident member, like myself.” 

“A member is he,” queried Fontaine; “by 
what right 

“He writes for the magazines.” 

“The medical ones, yes.” 

“No, the great monthlies,” said Edith. “Arti- 
cles in the popular science line. He and Lil- 
lian Crandall’s father are chums. They have 
a microscope, and between them have analyzed 
pretty much all the green scum of the marshes 
around Ellersport. From the green scum was 
evolved the magazine papers.” 

A minute or two later Fontaine felt a hand 
on his shoulder, and turned to face Atwater and 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


43 


his lovely companion. Edith adroitly managed 
an exchange of partners, and Fontaine found 
himself left to entertain a strange girl, about 
whom he knew nothing, save that she was a 
graceful dancer, and had a face like a tropical 
flower. The necessity of immediate conversa- 
tion was averted, by some one striking a rich 
chord on the piano, when the chatting, laugh- 
ing assemblage at once became hushed. 

On a side table stood a silver salver, on which 
were piled as many sealed envelopes as there 
were club nights in a year. Each envelope con- 
tained the title of a literary or artistic topic, 
and a second card bearing the names of three 
members, one of whom would be called upon 
to make a five minutes impromptu speech upon 
the theme, after which the club would engage 
in free discussion. Such was the regular line 
of procedure. Edith had said to Fontaine: 

‘‘There is always good music, good talk, and 
afterwards coffee and a crust.’’ 

The music that night was indeed excellent, 
and when it ended the president of the society 
picked up an envelope from the tray at a ven- 
ture, and after opening it, announced that Doc- 


44 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


tor Atwater of Ellersport would address the club, 
upon “Sectionalism in Fiction.” 

There was perhaps no readier man there than 
Atwater; yet he felt the shock of embarrass- 
ment which any other member would have felt 
under like circumstances. He rose, however, 
without a moment’s hesitation, and had no diffi- 
culty in filling the time. The club took up the 
theme with avidity, and kept the ball rolling, 
with brief, telling remarks, full of wit and in- 
dividuality. George Cable and Miss Murfree 
received the most attention. Miss Wilkins 
came in for a share, and a thick-set man, with 
a short upper lip and a black mustache, rose 
and said he was hourly expecting to see Miss 
Wilkins attacked by some champion of rural 
New England, who would prove her guilty of 
libeling a harmless and long-suffering portion of 
the community. Cable, he said, had been obliged 
to stay away from New Orleans, since the publi- 
cation of his studies of creole life, and a man 
name Craddock had tried to get a land-title per- 
fected in a Tennessee court, and the judge “set 
upon” him, because, he said, he believed “he was 
the very same feller who writ agin the moun- 
tings.” 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


45 


Some one brought up Eggleston, and by the 
time the “Hoosier Schoolmaster” and the “Cir- 
cuit Rider” were passed in review, there was a 
fragrance of hot coffee stealing through the long 
room. A lady in an empire gown of gay bro- 
cade, with a girdle of hammered silver, and an- 
other in a tailor-made suit of dark broadcloth, 
went back and forth from the buffet to a table 
behind a tall screen. While these mysterious 
operations were in progress, the talk drifted far 
and wide; laughter and jests prevailed. 

A little group still dangled by a long cord, to 
the subject of the night. Eggleston’s “Faith 
Doctor” led to a rambling talk upon occult cures. 
One gentleman ventured the remark, that the 
day would come when a certain high class of 
functional forces belonging to humanity, whose 
operations now seem quite lawless and erratic, 
would be clearly understood. 

“I am with you there,” said Atwater, “but the 
day of which you speak is still far distant.” 

Fontaine moved impatiently, and the glance 
he gave Atwater had a touch of scorn. 

Lillian Crandall observed it; so did Edith 
Norgate. The latter said smilingly: 


46 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


‘‘It would be interesting to know what a hard- 
ened materialist, like Mr. Fontaine, would have 
to say about the wonders performed by some of 
our latter-day layers on of hands.” 

“I disclaim the title you have given me,” he 
said quietly, “and I also disclaim all interest in 
your so-called wonders. I think they are, for 
the most part, lying wonders. Certain psycho- 
logical laws may play a part in certain instances, 
mercenary craft and unblushing humbuggery play 
a much larger part. Busy people have no time 
to sift a matter so involved, and whose proven 
value is so slight.” 

Edith covertly watched Miss Crandall while 
he spoke; and all listened attentively as she 
said, in a clear, sweet voice: 

“I agree with Mr. Fontaine. All attempts to 
reach the core of reality in such matters as the 
effect of mind upon mind, or mind upon body, 
must prove futile. What has been named Chris- 
tian Science is no science at all, and I agree with 
the honorable speaker, too, as to the duplicity 
practiced by many of its votaries.” 

“From blue glass to the Keeley cure, all is 
vanity and vexation of spirit,” drawled the black 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


47 


mustache — a striking looking man, whose face 
always recalled that of his father, a distinguished 
war-governor. 

“By the way,” he continued, “the Dwight nec- 
romancer has straightened up several fellows of 
my acquaintance, most remarkably. Doctor 
Atwater, you are in a position to know; which 
is it, the man or the medicine?” 

“Both,” said Atwater. “I am acquainted 
with Dr. Keeley, personally. Like all physi- 
cians, he has a large knowledge of the confiding 
gullibility of the human family. In my opinion, 
he would not scruple to deal in humbug, pure 
and simple, if it served his purpose and injured 
no one. But his treatment does not just come 
under that category. He rouses men’s will- 
power, and gives to it the added impulse of his 
own remarkable personality. I could do just 
what Keeley does, if I were like him; but I am 
not. I could never secure such trust and obedi- 
ence. If men want alcohol he gives it to them 
charged with something which causes loathing. 
He administers a medicine for racked nerves 
and calls it chloride of gold ; but that’s a detail. 
Gold is a word to conjure with” 


48 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


The coffee was served, and the crust, which 
proved to be angels’ food with pink sherbet, 
joyously eaten. At one o’clock Fontaine put 
Edith aboard a south-bound train and bade her 
adieu. 

“Come up again soon,” he said. “You’ll have 
to keep watch of me I can not remember half 
the orders you have given me” 

Her blue eyes shone, as she smiled through 
her veil and said: 

“I’ll keep watch of you; never fear.” 

Fontaine returned to his hotel, and late as it 
was, he found McNulty in the smoking-room. 
He was standing under the gas, his hat on the 
back of his head, talking rapidly to a group of 
men about him, who were laughing at his re- 
marks. 

“Ah, here comes the speaker,” he said, turn- 
ing to Fontaine “Rather late for you, my friend. 
You should follow my example — that is, the ex- 
ample I am going to set; for in just a quarter 
of an hour, more or less, I shall be in bed. Say, 
Fontaine, was it you or some other fellow who 
reminded me to-day of old Fred Croom.? You 
see, boys, when Croom was running for con- 





J 



. » 





THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


51 


gress, I used to go about with him a good bit; 
and he never bade me good-night or good-bye 
without saying: 

‘“Take care of yourself, Mack — take care of 
yourself. ’ And when he started for Washington, 
a week or so ago, he said it again, with tears 
in his eyes. The dear soul seemed always afraid 
somebody or something was going to get away 
with me. I used to introduce him to his audi- 
ences in the west counties, where there are a 
lot of German’s, as ‘Unser Fritz;’ and then I’d 
make them a little German speech. It always 
tickles a crowd to hear an Irishman talk Dutch. 
Groom had a grand bass voice, and when the 
talks were over we’d give them a verse or two 
of ‘Die Wacht am Rhine.’ By the way, boys, 
you’ve all heard of Bingen on the Rhine. 

One after another of the group said or sung: 
“Fair Bingen — sweet Bingen — calm Bingen on 
the Rhine.” 

“Well, the oddest thing happened to-day. I 
found a man who was born and brought up at 
Bingen — the very old spot! He keeps store in 
a basement, and he sells some of the finest Rhine 
wine on earth. It’s just around here on Ches- 


52 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


roun. Street. Come on and see if I’m lying. If 
I am, I’ll pay for a tierce of any other kind you 
may order,” 

He had a hand on one man’s lapel and reached 
for Fontaine’s arm, but the speaker drew back. 

“Hold on. Mack. How about that good ex- 
ample.? Stop and go to bed.” 

But McNulty was gone, and Bruce knew the 
dawn wo.uld find him in the wine-shop. 


CHAPTER V 


When he awoke the next morning, and many 
times during the day, Fontaine’s mind recurred 
to something Edith had said, on the way from 
the club-room to the depot. It was to the effect 
that Lillian Crandall was some sort of nonde- 
script practitioner, like Eggleston’s faith doctor. 
She said: 

“I tried to get you to make some incisive, 
sweeping remark, that would shock the non- 
sense out of her, but for once you were rather 
tame.” And he responded: 

“Thanks. Her eyes are like brown agates. 
You have surely been misinformed. She does 
not look like one of that sort. She is neither 
visionary nor designing. Then, too, she is a 
society girl; and they never allow themselves 
to be diverted, by ever so little, from the beaten 
path.” 

Edith laughed as she said: 

“That prejudice of yours against society girls 
53 


54 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


has become chronic. I don’t know that I care 
to have it cured.’’ A moment later she con- 
tinued, gravely: 

“I have had a speaking acquaintance with 
Miss Crandall for a year or two, and have heard 
more or less about her whenever I have come 
up here. Her sister is the wife of Tom Hollis, 
the publisher; she stays with them when she is 
in the city. I can not tell you just what I have 
heard, but it amounts to this, that she practices 
mind-cure. There is some foundation for the 
rumor, I feel sure; but the Holliss are utterly 
silent on the subject, as is Lillian herself.” 

Doctor Atwater kept a horse and sleigh in 
town, and on Sunday afternoon, he and Fontaine 
took a long, brisk drive. Bruce repeated what 
Edith had said about Miss Crandall and the 
mind-cure. 

“Miss Norgate was not altogether wide of the 
mark,” said Atwater; “though I feel sure the 
impression she gave you was an erroneous one. 
The Crandalls are one of the old families of our 
city; came in with the English after the French, 
as they say. I have known Lillian since she 
was a child. Her mother died many years ago, 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


55 


and her father is something of a recluse. Lillian 
herself has a peculiar organization. She is 
something of a mind-reader. She always knows 
when her father particularly wishes for her, dur- 
ing her absences from home; and she has more 
than once surprised me, by speaking out my 
thought, when it had no relevancy to anything 
which had been said before. The subject was 
usually of no moment. She has told me, that 
while she has many times felt sure she knew 
what was passing in the mind of another, she 
believed, in no case were the thoughts such as 
might not have been spoken aloud. Usually 
they were so spoken, very soon. She never 
saw a secret, and was thankful for the fact. 

“Three years ago she went with the Gardiners 
of Ellersport, to California. They were spend- 
ing some weeks at Los Gatos, and I, happening 
to be out there, joined them for a time. There 
was, boarding at the Mountain Springs Hotel, a 
lady with an epileptic son — a lad of about four- 
teen. One morning a number of us started out 
for a stroll through the woods, and this is what 
happened. The boy, whose seizures could 
never be anticipated, was one of the party. He 


56 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


was walking in front of Lillian, when he sud- 
denly grew rigid and was about to fall. She 
sprang forward, caught him by the shoulders, 
and spoke his name. The fit was arrested. He 
turned to his mother and said: 

‘“It has gone!’ 

“I was not particularly surprised that she 
could do this once, but it did puzzle me when 
I saw her do it many times. The poor lad re- 
mained near her as much as he could, and his 
attacks became less and less frequent. He, with 
his mother accompanied the Gardiner party to 
Los Angelos and thence by sea to Portland; and 
before our people left the Pacific coast, Ralph 
Oliver appeared to be perfectly well. 

“Lillian does not understand it at all. She 
says she was conscious only, of wishing insist- 
ently, that Ralph might not have a fit, and 
the wish was accompanied with a sense of power 
to command his nervous system not to yield. 

“After we were all back in Ellersport, I had 
more than one talk with her about the matter. 
She was utterly without any theory concerning 
it, and it was only after long persuasion that I 
induced her to try her power upon other sub- 
jects, which she finally consented to do.*' 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


57 


“And with what result?” queried Fontaine, 
deeply interested. 

“The patients — for they were patients of 
mine — were in all three cases women suffering 
from nervous complaints. Lillian controlled 
their symptoms by holding their hands. There 
seemed to be nothing very involved about the 
matter. Where organic disease existed, she 
could do nothing; but where the suffering was 
the result of disordered nerves, she could give 
relief.” 

“Was the matter made public in Ellersport?” 
asked Fontaine. 

“No,” replied his friend, “but it might better 
have been. The strangest stories went abroad. 
Lillian was less annoyed by them, than I feared 
she would be.” 

“You have known the Crandalls very inti- 
mately,” Fontaine remarked. To this the doc- 
tor responded: 

“I was always a sort of favorite with the old 
gentleman, and latterly I have been his physi- 
cian. He is something of a scientist, and full 
of eccentric whims and opinions. You would 
call him a ‘crank.’ He is rich by inherited prop- 


58 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


erty, and is not nearly so well-balanced as 
though he had been forced to adopt some defi- 
nite pursuit.” 

“Mr. Crandall has been twice married, I am 
told.” 

“Yes, Mrs. Tom Hollis, the daughter of the 
first wife, is twenty years older than her half 
sister, Lillian. Since the death of Lillian’s 
mother Mr. Crandall has lived very retired, with 
an elderly female relative for a housekeeper. 
Now and then he enjoys having a friend visit 
him, to listen to his vaporings. He has a com- 
prehensive scheme to relieve the friction every- 
where ; to equalize the benefits and soften the 
ills of the world. Yet he is not a socialist, 
nor in the accepted sense, a labor reformer. He 
says society and the political world are not, as 
yet, solid enough to bear the leverage of his 
idea. That is the way he phrases it. He is 
fully persuaded, that so far as the financial con- 
dition of the country is concerned, the devil and 
Tom Sawyer are just over the hill. Yet, odd as 
he seems at times, he is in many respects most 
admirable. He represents a luxury our country 
has not felt able to indulge in, to any great ex- 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


59 


tent — the intellectual man of leisure. He is de- 
lightfully genial to his friends and favorites, and 
his love for his youngest daughter is very un- 
selfish and tender.” 

“You sometimes call upon Miss Crandall, at 
her sister’s, do you not.?” asked Fontaine. 

“O, yes,” said Atwater, “and sometime I shall 
be most happy to take you with me, as an old 
friend.” 

“The young lady invited me to call, at the 
end of our chat last Friday night.” 

Atwater looked slightly surprised. 

“I believe I introduced you,” he remarked. 

“We had met before,” said Fontaine, “at the 
inaugural ball. I danced with her once.” 

Atwater abruptly changed the subject, and 
after a brief talk about matters pertaining to the 
House, they finished their drive almost in silence. 


CHAPTER VI 

The assembly weeks that followed were 
crowded with business, of the usual ineffective 
character. The Senate got to work promptly, 
and soon had a heavy batch of bills sent down 
to the House. They got a first reading there, 
and then awaited their turn. In the House, the 
new members kept the pages running to the 
speaker's desk, with bills and resolutions. The 
committees worked night after night over the 
stupendous problem of “how not to do it.” And 
when their reports began to come in, the recom- 
mendation of indefinite postponement occurred 
with monotonous frequency. 

Mr. Breck of Stillwell came along to where 
Calkins of Putnam stood, with his thumbs in 
his vest-pockets, looking very loose-jointed, and 
out of a job, and generally uncomfortable. 
Breck gave him a familiar slap on the shoulder 
as he remarked: 


60 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


6i 


“Well, old man, how do you like it, as far as 
you’ve gone?” 

Calkins was a long, lean farmer, with sandy 
hair and pale-blue eyes. His blond face showed 
a frosty pink through its coat of last summer’s 
tan. He changed his balance to the other foot, 
took a cake of navy from his pocket, and with 
a broad-bladed jackknife proceeded to carve a 
true cube which he deposited in his left cheek. 

“How do I like it?” he repeated. “Not so 
thunderin’ well as I might. I’d ruther be split- 
tin’ stave-bolts or hullin’ clover-seed, and it’s 
them like things I ort to be doin’ just now. To 
think o’ my settin’ all winter in a stuffed chair, 
afore a curly-maple desk, with a pile o’ Acts on 
top of it, and a big waste-paper basket in under 
it! About the only blame bit o’ this gorjus 
State House furniture I got any use fer, is ther 
nickel-plated spitoons, and I aint the only man 
in that fix.” 

Breck laughed, a little ruefully, as he said: 

“It does seem to take us country members a 
good while to get the run of things. Seems 
like pretty much all the blowing was being done 
by the lawyers, and that preacher — they say 


62 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


he’s a broken-down minister, but his wind’s 
good yet — and that German chemist, with his 
food ’dulterations, and the fellows that have 
come here to represent the different societies — 
the Patrons of Industry and the Plumbers’ As- 
sociation, and the Boiler-makers’ Guild, Have 
you done any committee work yet?” 

“O, yes. I’ve set on a committee. I’d like to 
tramp on it. I don’t know much, but I know 
enough to keep my mouth shut. The whole 
thing is a fakir’s juggle, and the most ridicu- 
lous thing about it is, the lot of us that come 
here every day to look on, and make believe 
we’re in it. There’s that dum-blistered readin' 
clerk, now — I’d like to hit him with a stuffed 
club! Startin’ off like a blind pacer over the 
quarter-stretch, with ‘a nact to ‘mend a nact, ’ 
an’ not another word can you understand, 
till he fetches up winded, with, ‘perceed to de- 
clare an emergency.’ You know, Breck, I was 
elected as a dark hawse candidate.” 

He gave a roll to his quid, and an indescrib- 
ably ludicrous grimace. 

“Yaas,a dark hawse I was. Well, I think I’ll 
go home and re-register as a sorrel donkey.” 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


63 


They were standing beside the cigar-stand, 
in the lower court of the capitol. A little group 
had gathered around, to enjoy the farmer’s or- 
iginal expressions. It was Mr. McNulty who 
said: 

“The gentleman from Putnam is all there, 
when he says, or implies, that a few men con- 
trol the House! It is always the case except 
upon political questions, when there is a dis- 
tinctly party vote. A few men keep the ball 
rolling, and there is no reason^ Calkins, why a 
member with your good horse sense, and your 
limber tongue, should not be of that number/^ 

Calkins laughed derisively. 

“Aw, come oft! You’re an Irishman! I’ve 
no education and Pm not a lawyer. And mind 
you,” he continued, “I’ve got through kickin’ 
about the legislature havin’ too many lawyers 
in it. I’d like to know when any business would 
ever be got along with, in this body,ef it wasn’t 
fer the lawyers.” 

“You’re about right, there,” said Breck, with 
an air of profound knowledge. “The commit- 
tee on judiciary, now, is made up of lawyers, 
with the exception of myself, and the amount of 


64 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


labor we have to perform — well, Mr. McNulty 
here knows. He’s on that committee too. The 
bills that are referred to us are, for the most 
part, simply” — he hesitated for a word and Cal- 
kins supplied ‘‘rot.” 

“Look here, Calkins,” said McNulty, “there’s 
a matter coming up after awhile, that I wish 
you’d keep your weather eye open for. I’ll tell 
you when it is to come before the House, and 
prime you a bit. And if that patent feed-chop- 
per of a reading-clerk makes a mess of it, I’ll 
get the bill down and go over it with you, and 
then I want you to make a speech, in your own 
picturesque style.” 

“On the floor of the House 

“Certainly.” 

“Not if the court knows herself, and she thinks 
she does.” 

With this classic quotation Calkins turned 
away. He walked deliberately past the eleva- 
tor, climbed the stairs and went to his seat. 

McNulty and the other members still lingered 
in the lower court, smoking and talking. 

Two measures of importance were being dis- 
cussed by this assembly. One was the passage 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


65 


of a bill amending the law relating to the fees 
and salaries of State and county officers. The 
other was the restoration of the appointing power 
to the governor. 

It is a fact to be deplored, that four fifths of 
all our legislation, both national and state, is of 
a purely political character. The people elect 
representatives to spend weeks and months 
pulling the same old wires, and continuing in 
the halls of legislation the contest for party 
supremacy, which is the salient function of all 
conventions and primaries. 

The assembly over which Bruce Fontaine pre- 
sided was no exception to the general rule. Two 
years before, the chief work of the legislature, 
a very one-sided body, had been to reapportion 
or ‘‘gerrymander’* the State, thus giving the 
party in power an apparently unlimited period 
of ascendency. At that time the governor was 
on the minority side, and the legislature did the 
very reprehensible thing, of taking from the chief 
executive certain prerogatives which in the na- 
ture of things should belong to him, and making 
them its own by legal enactment. They left 
the governor sitting in his high place, a mere 

The Speaker of the House 5 


66 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


lay figure, crippled in every function of his 
office. There were upright men of the majority, 
who fought the measure, as an act of party des- 
potism. Still it carried; and now that a man 
of their own side had been elected to the first 
place in the offices of the State, the propriety of 
restoring to him the appointing power was seri- 
ously discussed in both legislative houses. 

Mr. Fontaine had, in the previous assembly, 
opposed the wresting of this power. He was 
a strong partisan, but he was also an upright 
man, and this act he considered a piece of party 
assumption, the gain of which would not be 
commensurate with the blame it would call forth 
from the opposition, and the State at large. 
During the long periods lying between the ses- 
sions of the legislature, the benevolent and 
penal institutions of the State are the Governor’s 
immediate charge, and no let should be placed 
upon his ability to make any changes in their 
supervisory boards which in his judgment should 
seem necessary. 

Governor Townley was extremely anxious for 
this assembly to undo the bad work of the pre- 
ceding one, and the best men in both houses, 
and of both parties, were with him. 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


67 


Still when the measure came up for consider- 
ation, there was opposition to it, and Fontaine 
kept the bill back, while caucus after caucus was 
held, and much individual work was done in its 
behalf. It was passed at last, giving back to the 
executive what should never have been taken 
away from him. 

After the House adjourned, on the day of the 
vote. Governor Townley sent for the speaker. 
Bruce started obediently, in answer to the sum- 
mons. In the corridor he ran against McNulty, 
and greeted him with: 

“The very boy I wanted to see! I am on my 
way to the throne-room; you must come along 
and take your share.” 

“My share of what?” asked the mercurial city 
member. 

“Of thanks, compliments, etc. The governor 
is something of a gusher, and is quite carried 
away by the result of the vote. No man did 
more to bring it about than yourself, and he 
shall know it.” 

“He is tickled over the way it was done,” said 
McNulty. “The bill would have passed the 
House two weeks ago, the minority voting for 


68 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


it solidly. But Townley wanted the thing done 
by his own party, as at last it was, though by a 
tight squeeze. There’s a number of fellows op- 
posed to the old man, on general principles. I 
ought to be, for I’m a sort of a cuss, you know, 
and he’s all straight wood. I know two men 
who offered their support to the governor, with 
a price attached. They got unexpectedly sat 
upon, and they have opposed him bitterly ever 
since. 

They had reached the outer office, and Mr. 
Knox, the private secretary, was showing them 
into the governor’s sanctum. He met them with 
his fine, manly face all smiles, and while shak- 
ing hands with the speaker, he threw an embrac- 
ing arm over McNulty’s shoulders, and said: 

“I know what this good fellow has been do- 
ing, the past ten days. Knox gave me the hint 
which you gave him, and I acted upon it.” 

McNulty laughed, as he remarked: 

“Men are egotistical goats anyhow, most of 
’em. I knew three or four members that could 
be worked through their vanity; so says I, the 
governor must send for them, one at a time, 
for a private and confidential talk. They each 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


69 


walked out of this office your sworn knight and 
soldier. Tim Galaher, of Midmost, comes to me 
and says in a hoarse, Irish whisper: 

‘‘‘He’s a foine man, is the guvner, a mighty 
foine man, and as pleasant shpoken as ye plaze. 
Wud ye believe it. Mack, me boy, he sint for me 
to his own room, and we had a saycret confer- 
ence, which ril not be talkin’ about to any man ; 
but from this on the guvner’ s intherests are me 
own. 

The three men laughed, and Fontaine said: 

“Well, governor, I was sent for too, and I 
came gladly, to shake your hand in congratula- 
tion; and now, if there is nothing further, we 
will give way to others.” They bowed them- 
selves out, and retired through the ante-room, 
which was fast filling with callers. 

Through all the wrangle over House Bill No. 
37, Edith Norgate never lost sight of Fontaine. 
One afternoon he called the chairman of the 
ways and means committee to his desk, and re- 
signing to him temporarily the gavel, went down 
to the floor, and made a brief, telling speech in 
favor of the bill. The next day he received a 
flattering letter from Edith. 


70 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


After the passage of the bill by the House — 
which practically made it a law, for the Senate’s 
concurrence was assured — he telegraphed the 
result to Edith, and received in reply: 

‘‘Good — glorious! Will be up next week to 
shake hands.” 


CHAPTER VII 


Mr. Fontaine was thinking with pleasure of 
the telegram, and his face showed it, as he and 
McNulty crossed the square together, to Capitol 
Street. Two fine, manly figures they were, 
striding along through the frosty air, with even, 
well-measured steps. 

A summer evening in the country is a tran- 
quilizing pleasure, a winter evening in the city 
an exhilarating delight. The blazing electric 
globes, the rolling vehicles, the animated throngs 
of the pavements, anticipation of table cheer 
and hearth cheer and hours of social refresh- 
ment, all combine to make the city pedestrian 
at nightfall a buoyant and happy being. 

At least such a being was Bruce Fontaine on 
that Friday night. Other evenings were given, 
in part at least, to the business of the legisla- 
ture. Friday evening he gave to himself. There 
was usually a short forenoon session on Satur- 
day, and then adjournment till Monday. The 


72 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


winter seemed to mark an era for the speaker. 
Within a month, some subtle change had come 
upon him. There was an added grace of bear- 
ing, a look of enlarged interest in life. For 
several years he had turned his back on society, 
and lived apart from women, except those of 
his own kin. And there was Edith Norgate — 
he had never turned his back on her. 

She had always been his faithful friend and 
ally, his chum and good comrade. When he 
married Louise Lombard, Edith dropped the 
correspondence which they had always kept up 
during any separation, since childhood. After 
Mrs. Fontaine’s death she resumed it herself, and 
it had continued in a desultory fashion. The 
phrase which often preceded her signature was, 
‘‘Yours to command;’’ and he frequently did 
command her. The Hillhurst Times had cham- 
pioned every local cause in which he was inter- 
ested, and castigated every man or measure 
which, in his opinion, was deserving of punish- 
ment. He had made money as a lawyer, and 
when on one occasion he inquired of Edith 
whether the paper was in good financial condi- 
tion, she informed him coolly that its financial 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


73 


condition was no concern of his, and if he had 
any cash to invest, she would advise him to buy 
mortgage notes. 

It were idle to say that Mr. Fontaine had 
never thought of Edith as a wife. Indeed, he 
had thought of her that way a great many times. 
More than once he had said to himself: 

“If I ever intended to marry, she would suit.’^ 

She was his own age, about thirty-three; but 
she seemed to him more beautiful and fascinat- 
ing each time he saw her. 

As a child, she was never ill and was tirelessly 
active. She could play hounds and hares with 
Bruce and her two brothers, and liked to be 
the hare. As a very young girl, she was thin 
and angular and freckled. The boys gave her 
dreadful nicknames, such as “Scraps’’ and 
“Spotty.” Bruce recalled them sometimes, with 
an inward laugh, as he dwelt upon her exquisitely 
modeled figure, and delicate, healthful coloring. 
At twenty-five she was a very attractive young 
lady. At thirty she was a glowing beauty, and 
she would be a handsome woman at sixty. 
But the man knew that if ever he proposed to 
Edith, it would be for the reason that he be- 


74 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


lieved she would always be a spur to his am* 
bition and an ornament to his career, and be- 
cause she suited him physically as well as 
another. 

He had notions of what love meant; relative 
somewhat to that touching episode of his youth, 
his brief married life; modified largely by his 
maturer thought. - He did not imagine he was 
in love with Edith Norgate, and as yet he was 
not quite ready to declare that love did not mat- 
ter. Lately he had begun to think he was near- 
ing a solution of the question whether he should 
offer himself to Edith. Perhaps, after all, he 
could love. Some change was working upon 
him. His life seemed to have acquired a full- 
ness and richness unknown to it before. The 
earth was firmer to walk upon, the sky fuller of 
space and light, the air better to breathe. He 
worked constantly and ably, but without weari- 
ness, and the time of ennui and regrets seemed 
forever past. 

He was crossing Cbesroun Street that Friday 
evening, with McNulty, when a carriage drawn 
by a pair of glossy black horses, and driven by 
% glossy black negroj moved past them, at a 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


75 


stately trot. It was occupied by a lady. Through 
the clear glass of the door, her face beamed 
out; literally beamed when her eyes fell upon 
Fontaine. She waved her hand, with her hand- 
kerchief in it, inside the glass. What was there 
to make his heart suddenly leap, and then labor 
at its beating.^^ Only a smile, on a sweet girl 
face, and a pretty gesture. But such a smile! 

“That was Tom Hollis’s turnout, and that was 
his sister-in-law inside the coach, ”said McNulty. 
“He is a distinguished man, upon whom Miss 
Lillian Crandall bestows so much of her lofty 
attention, O no, she didn’t include me. I 
know Tom as well as the next, and I used to 
know her, but have dropped away. She gave 
me a bit of a lecture once, which she should not 
have done. But my brother Mark, now, thinks 
there is nobody like her. She spends all her 
winters here, and this precious old town isn’t so 
big but what all the nicest people may know 
each other. But that doesn’t include me, at 
this writing.’’ 

They entered the Helicon House together. 
In the office they met young Mark McNulty, 
who was waiting to see his brother. He was a 


76 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


tall, fresh-colored young man, some five years 
younger than the representative. Mark was in 
the employ of a large banking firm, and his face 
showed that he deserved the high place in his 
employer’s esteem, which he enjoyed. 

“Sure, an here is the bye himself,’^ said Mc- 
Nulty, dropping into a strong brogue; “and a 
broth of a bye it is! Mark, me lad, let me have 
the playsure of introducin’ you to Mr. Fon- 
taine, the honorable Speaker of the House.” 

Bruce shook the youth’s hand heartily, and 
after a few kindly sentences, left the brothers 
together and went up to his room. 

He took Edith’s last letter and her recent 
telegram from his pocket, and laid them in a 
drawer beside her picture. Just before leaving 
town the last time, she had a new photograph 
made; a Paris panel, one of Grierson’s best. 
Bruce got one, of course. He took it up that 
evening, and examined the handsome, piquant 
face long and earnestly. When he laid it 
down, he knew he would never ask himself 
again whether or not he loved her. 

He had met Lillian Crandall some half dozen 
times within the month— at the ball, at the club, 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


77 


at a reception given by the wife of Judge Bain- 
bridge, the senior on the supreme bench, and 
the other times at her home, where he had 
called, once with Atwater, afterwards alone. 
Whenever he had been thrown in her society, 
he had been filled with a strange happiness, 
each time stronger and more pervading than the 
last. She had a way of regarding him earnestly, 
with those wonderful, deep eyes. They were 
always ready to gleam and sparkle with mirth; 
but when they first turned to him, it was with 
a look of angelic sympathy. 

If Lillian had not overheard that low-spoken 
talk between Mrs. Colby and her sister, that 
night in the State library, she would never have 
looked at him in just that way. She imagined 
him still overshadowed, in a sense, by the sor- 
row of that early bereavement, when in fact it 
was not the case. The story told with Mrs. Col- 
by’s graphic touches, was always fresh in her 
mind whenever she first saw him, though she 
ceased to remember it when they had been to- 
gether for a few minutes. 

Emerson says, ‘‘The only thing grief has 
taught me, is to know how shallow it is.” Like 


78 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


Emerson, Fontaine looked back to that sudden 
death as to “the loss of a beautiful estate,’^ and 
his feeling of loss was embittered by a sense of 
having been duped and wronged. Without a 
doubt, his wife’s death had left a permanent 
impression upon his habits and character; but 
that he was still sore-hearted, could not be true. 

Lillian would have said so to herself, if she 
had questioned her own thoughts, but she was 
not conscious of thinking upon the subject. 

She was one to whom several men had been 
rather hasty, in declaring love and offering mar- 
riage, and when, at their several meetings, she 
had found herself deeply interested in Fontaine, 
she had felt a quiet satisfaction in the thought 
that here was a man who was pledged to his 
past; that she could talk with him and walk 
with him, and enjoy to the full the atmosphere 
of virile effectiveness that was inseparable from 
his presence. She was a dreamer and highly 
imaginative; he was just the opposite, and in 
that fact lay a charm. She welcomed him with 
frank pleasure, when he called at Mr. Hollis’s. 
To herself she said: 

“He shall be my special freind, for he is very 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


79 


noble and in the pride and joy of that thought, 
she had given him that glorious smile from the 
carriage. 

‘‘I must see her again, before Edith comes,” 
he said to himself. He knew Edith would be 
in the city at no distant day. He knew also 
that she was rather exacting of attention, and 
brooked no rivals, even in friendship. 

Looking over his letters and notes that even- 
ing, he found an invitation from Mrs. Colby to 
a five o’clock tea at her home, on the following 
afternoon. For two reasons, he decided at once 
to attend. First, Mrs. Colby was a very old 
friend, intimately associated with some of the 
profoundest moments of his life, and he owed 
her the courtesy of an acceptance. His second 
reason was the more prevailing of the two; he 
knew he would meet Lillian Crandall there, for 
her sister, Mrs. Hollis, was the social running- 
mate of the judge’s lady. 

Riley Tea,” he read from the dainty card. 
“I’ll ask Atwater what that means.” The doctor, 
being familiar with the social life of the city, 
was sure to be invited. Not more than half a 
dozen other statesmen received special cards to 


8o 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


this unique five o’clock. Saturday was full of 
legislative business, though the morning session 
was short. As the speaker and Dr. Atwater 
were about leaving the State House, in the after- 
noon, they ran across Judge Colby. He was a 
short, corpulent man, with a red face, and on 
this occasion he was in a decided condition of 
splutter. His countenance expanded into a 
smile, however, as he met the speaker and his 
companion. 

“Going up our way, gentlemen, aren’t you.^^” 
he said. “Those ladies of mine have bound me 
up with pledges, to be there too, and I haven’t 
the time; really I haven’t. Promised my wife 
to attend to an errand or two, which I’ve clean 
forgotten till this minute, and now it’s too late. 
But I’ll pay my way out of the scrape. Don’t 
forget your wallets, boys.” 

“Church affair, eh?” said Fontaine. “Glad 
you mentioned it.” 

“Not exactly, but something resembling it; a 
benefit for a free kindergarten. No gimcracks 
for sale, but they’ll make you pay for what you 
eat and drink, and pretty dearly too, I sus- 
pect,” and the judge went chuckling down the 
corridor. 


CHAPTER VIII 


“Old Fashioned Roses/^ said Atwater, as he 
and Fontaine entered the Colby drawing-room. 
A soft, pink light flooded the apartment, which 
was wreathed and festooned with roses — only 
tissue paper ones, to be sure, but the imitation 
was clever, and the effect charming. Over the 
piano hung a lithograph of James Whitcomb 
Riley, framed in “wave printed bark of syca- 
more,’’ with a loop of roses thrown over it. 
Other copies of the picture were in other rooms; 
one surrounded and half hidden by a snarl of 
fishing-lines and flies, and one fastened to the 
wall with “lithe stalks of barley, topped with 
ruddy gold.” An intimate familiarity with the 
poet was manifest at every turn. 

There was a tea-table, presided over by a tall 
young lady in a rose-colored gown. 

“Queen rose of the rose-bud garden of girls,” 
quoted the doctor, while Bruce pressed forward 
81 


The Speaker of the House 6 


82 THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 

and asked for a cup of tea. Miss CrandalFs 
face, when she turned to him, flushed softly, 
then instantly paled, as was its mysterious way. 
He took his cup from her hand and withdrew a 
step, while Atwater bought his beverage and 
drank it, standing near Lillian. After he had 
finished and given back his cup, he still lingered, 
talking to her and pretending to assist her. His 
manner was easy, and all his movements deft 
and graceful, as a doctor’s should be. He looked 
well and talked well, and Lillian evidently found 
him agreeable. 

‘‘And he is her very old friend, thought 
Bruce, with a pang of envy. 

But when, after the doctor withdrew, she 
summoned him back to the table with a look, 
he had no room for envy in his heart. 

“Stay here for a little while,” she said. “Pres- 
ently I shall be relieved then I want to show 
you through the house.” 

A few more cups of tea were dispensed, and 
then a blonde in a gown of sea-green brocade 
took Lillian’s place, and she took Fontaine’s 
arm and conducted him away, moving slowly 
through the crowd of people that filled the 


rooms. 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


83 


“When the frost is on the pumpkin — he 
said, breaking into a laugh of surprise and pleas- 
ure, as passing through a curtained archway, 
they came upon a novel bit of stage effect. In 
an alcove stood a tall shock of Indian corn, 
brought miles for the purpose of standing a few 
hours in that elegant room. The long, green- 
brown leaves rustled slightly, as they were 
brushed by the garments of the merry crowd, 
and emitted a characteristic fragrance. 

Just in front of the corn-shock, on a table, 
stood a mammoth pumpkin, glittering with dia- 
mond-dust. It was hollowed out, and partly 
filled with broken ice, on which stood a huge 
cut glass bowl, foaming over with sherbet. The 
delicious stuff was ladled out by one of Mrs. 
Colby’s daughters. She had an aigrette of corn- 
tassels fastened in her black hair, and around 
her waist was a rope of pumpkin vines —artificial 
of course — with a bunch of their crumpled yel- 
low blossoms dangling from the ends. 

A new side of life was being displayed to Mr. 
Fontaine — the aesthetic, artistic side. It was a 
little strange, but altogether charming. 

“How wonderful you women are,^^ he said, 
“to imagine all this!*^ 


84 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


“O, it was all easy enough,” replied Lillian, 
‘‘knowing Riley as we do, and loving him.” 

“You mean, liking his writings,” corrected 
Fontaine. 

“No,” she .insisted, “we love the man and his 
books.” 

Two crystal cups of sherbet were passed to 
them, and they disposed of it leisurely, standing 
in the shadow of the corn. Shouts of laughter 
came from the farther side of the hall, and 
Lillian said: 

“‘The Raggedy Man’ is over there, peddling 
apples, and ‘Elisebeth Ann’ is selling hot coffee 
and — what else, do you suppose 

“Custard pie, of course,” said Fontaine. “Shall 
we have some now.?” 

“O, no, wait awhile,’^ she answered, laughing. 

A small, sallow girl appeared. She wore a 
blue print dress, with a pink arm-hole apron, 
buttoned down the back. Her hair was in two 
tails, and her round, solemn gray eyes looked 
unutterable things. Some one lifted the slender 
child and stood her on a table. The laughter 
and chatter rippled down to silence, and in a 
weird, low voice she recited: 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


85 


‘‘Once there was a little boy 
At wouldn’t say his prayers, 

An’ when he went to bed, at night. 

Away up stairs, 

‘'His mammy hurd him holler, 

An’ his daddy hurd him bawl. 

An’ when they turned th’ kivers down. 

He wasn’t there at tall! 

“They seeked him in the rafter-room, 

The cubby-hole and press. 

They seeked him up the chimney flue 
An’ everywhere, I guess; 

“But all they ever found of him 
Was this, his pants and roundabout. 

An’ th’ gobble-uns ’ll git 
Ef you don’t watch out!” 

Where did you find such a charming ‘Orphan 
Annie.^^’^^ some one asked Lillian, who seemed 
to be identified with the evening’s entertain- 
ment; and she replied: 

“She is one of Bess Colby’s Sunday scholars. 
We have had her in mind for this a good 
while. 

The little girl was moving about among the 
people, carrying a big gourd dipper filled with 
favors — tiny booklets of drawing-paper, tied 
with narrow ribbon, and decorated with a pen- 
drawing or a couplet from one of Riley’s books. 


86 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


^‘Gobble-uns/^ she piped; “who’ll buy my 
gobble-uns?” Most of the souvenirs had a 
brownie or an elf-child sketched on the outside. 
Bruce pressed forward to buy one. 

“Let me select a nice one for you/^ said Lil- 
lian. “I made most of the things myself, and 
some are done better than others. Ah, here is 
one without any dreadful little picture — just a 
rhyme inside ” 

He took it, without reading the rhyme, and 
after holding it a moment, begged her to tie the 
ribbon in his buttonhole, which she did. 

“I should dearly like to buy all those pretty 
favors, if I might, he said. 

She laughed merrily at the idea. 

“What would you do with them.*^” 

“Keep them to look at and dream over,^^ he 
said. 

“Do you ever dream.^” she asked. 

His eyes swam, and melted into hers, as he 
replied: 

“I feel as though I were walking in a dream 
to-night.’^ 

“You should not turn dreamer,’^ she said, 
softly. “It is for women to muse and dream. 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


87 


For men there is the glorious world of 
action.’^ 

He outstayed Atwater, and indeed almost 
every one else. He asked her to sing something 
for him alone. Seated at the piano, she looked 
up with a smile and said: 

‘‘This is a Riley night, and the song must be 
one of Riley’s.’^ 

She struck a few soft chords, and sang in a 
slender but exquisitely sweet voice: 

'‘Just as of old! The world rolls on and on; 

The day dies into night — night into dawn — 

Dawn into dusk — through centuries untold — 

Just as of old. 

“Time loiters not. The river ever flows, 

Its brink or white with blossoms, or with snows; 

Its tide or warm with spring, or winter cold; 

Just as of old. 

“Lo! where is the beginning or the end 
Of living, loving, longing? Listen, friend! 

God answers with a silence of pure gold — 

Just as of old!” 

As he was taking his leave that evening, 
Fontaine spoke of the ball to be given in honor 
of the Assembly by the mayor and city officers, 
on the following Tuesday night, 
said: 


88 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


‘‘It will be a sort of free for all affair, I sup- 
pose, but I wish you would let me take you. I 
should love to dance with you again. 

“I will go, with pleasure,’’ she responded; 
“and it will be my last ball for a good while. 
Lent begins the following day. It comes early 
this year.” 

“Do you regret it.^”’ he asked. 

“O, no!” she replied; “I look forward to it 
with pleasure. It is good to have a time of 
quiet thought and frequent worship.” 

“I fear you would think one like myself a 
great heathen,” he remarked. 

“Why should 1.^”’ was her reply. “I do not 
know what you believe, but it is possible, I 
think, to live a good life and please God with- 
out praying regularly or very often. After all, 
what is religion, in its ultimate, but conduct.?” 

She seemed to wish to stand upon his plane, 
or at least to diminish a felt distance between 
them. There was a faint trace of bitterness in 
his voice as he said: 

“I fear the standard of conduct which you 
would approve, would make this crooked world 
an impossible place for men to live and act in.” 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


89 


“Why will you compel me to disagree with 
you?^^ she said, with a kind of sweet petulance. 
“I would erect no standard more severe than 
that of an enlightened conscience. Simple rec- 
titude can not be very difficult and she half 
sang, half recited these words from the poet of 
the night: 

“Just to be good — 

This is enough — enough! 

* * * * 

To let the thirst for worldly power and place 
Go unappeased; * * 

Ah! though we miss 
All else but this, 

To be good is enough!” 

When at length Lillian saw Mr. Fontaine 
depart, she turned back into deserted rooms. 
She stayed with the Colbys that night, and as- 
sisted the girls, Bess and Marian, about clearing 
away the artistic disorder of the fete, 

Bruce went home, stirred to the depths of his 
moral being. He knew he was on the eve of a 
trying crisis in his legislative career. A meas- 
ure of grave importance was being quietly can- 
vassed by the members of the Assembly, pend- 
ing its discussion in open session. The influence 


90 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


of the speaker was sought, both by the advo- 
cates of the measure, and by those opposed to 
it. It would be difficult to explain to the unini- 
tiated, just how, and to what extent legislation 
is influenced by the speaker of the house; but 
that it is so influenced is an undisputed fact. 
During that night walk to his hotel, Fontaine rose 
to a point of decision. If he had wavered and 
temporized before, putting self in the balance 
always, as he weighed different lines of action, 
he would do so no more. Simple rectitude 
should not be too difficult for him. 


CHAPTER IX 


The municipal ball was a somewhat crowded 
affair, but to Mr. Fontaine it was an occasion 
of unmixed pleasure; for Lillian was on his 
arm, when he entered the ball-room and when 
he left it, and he danced with her many times. 

She was playful and piquant and charming; 
and he felt that she must share the happiness 
which filled his own heart to aching. 

He no longer asked himself if he loved her. 
Every pulse in his body, every yearning of his 
soul asserted it. He had hardly reached the 
point of questioning whether she returned his 
love. His own delicious emotions, for the mo- 
ment, filled his cup of joy full enough. 

Once, between dances, they met Atwater and 
his partner, a little beauty of eighteen, one of 
his many city friends. 

“May I go to church with you to-morrow.^^^ 
he asked Lillian. 

“Assuredly you may,’’ she replied. “Do not 
91 


92 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


forget it, for I shall wait for you, and I dislike 
being late/^ 

“Church — to-morrow?” queried Fontaine, and 
Lillian explained: — 

“The Ash Wednesday services at St. Ste- 
phens. 

A little later Fontaine inquired: 

“What do you do during Lent?” 

“O, the usual things,” she said, “except such 
things as this.” 

“And the theater — you will regret the Irving- 
Terry week.” 

She shook her head 

“From childhood I have been accustomed to 
accept the lenten season, with all its small sac- 
rifices, as a blessing. It is such to me, and I 
no more regret the amusements I forego, than I 
am capable of desiring improper ones at other 
times. It is largely habit, I suspect.” 

The sweet night ended in the morning hours, 
but not before Fontaine gained the assurance 
that Lent need not interrupt his intercourse 
with Lillian. 

The following day Doctor Atwater appeared 
at his desk, only a few minutes before the noon 














THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


95 


adjournment. There was an added carefulness 
about his always neat attire, and Fontaine knew 
he had just come from the service at St. Ste- 
phen’s, which he had attended with Lillian. 

The speaker felt like censuring the gentleman 
from Ellers, for absenting himself without leave. 
He had been on duty himself, since nine o’clock. 
The committee on inspection of the journal, of 
which he was chairman, usually did its work in 
the morning; so whatever his dissipations may 
have been, it was rarely possible for him to 
make up lost sleep. He was usually able to 
command sleep the moment his head touched 
the pillow, and his great physical energy enabled 
him to work upon a minimum allowance of the 
balmy restorer. The fact, however, that he 
had been in bed a scant three hours out of the 
past thirty, may have had something to do with 
his irritation against the polished, suave doctor, 
with whom he had never before felt like quarrel- 
ing. 

That afternoon a man entered the hall of rep- 
resentatives, who instantly attracted to himself — 
as a lodestone attracts steel-dust — all the irri- 
tation and animosity of which Fontaine’s rather 
bland temperament was capable. 


96 THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 

Ferdinand Slicker was a perpetrator of un- 
proven felonies, a criminal out of prison, and 
one who would probably always walk at large. 
Bruce had known him since he was a boy of 
ten, and the other a bully of fifteen. Their 
fathers had been acquainted and lived near each 
other for years, always frankly antagonistic. In 
’64 the elder Slicker made money as a substi- 
tute-broker, and took pleasure in calling the 
elder Fontaine a “copperhead.” Ferdinand was 
at that time too young to serve his country, but 
his older brother won renown as a bounty- 
jumper. 

In appearance Mr. Slicker was dark and 
slight, with small hands and feet, a bulging fore- 
head and jet black hair, mustache and chin- 
whiskers. The only pursuit which he could 
place in evidence was that of managing officer 
of a graveyard insurance company. Atwater, 
who knew the man by reputation, had dignified 
him with a scientific name. He called him the 
Scincoid. 

The reason of this man’s appearance in the 
House was as well understood by the speaker 
as if he had written him, telling him when he 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


97 


was coming, and what he was coming for. He 
was an outrider of the army of lobbyists who 
would swarm through the city and into the 
State House, whenever the much talked of fee 
and salary bill came before the House for final 
action. 

Early in the session the Senate had framed 
and passed a bill, which amounted to a com- 
plete revision of the existing statute regulating 
the compensation of state and county officers. 
The people of the state at large had asked that 
such a revision be made, not so much in the in- 
terest of economy as for the sake of equity and 
justice. The reform was aimed at the fees. It 
had long been possible under the lavv^,for certain 
officials to enrich themselves by a system of con- 
structive fees, wholly unjust and in many 
instances oppressive. Most of the country 
members had come down, pledged to their 
constituents to do away with this abuse, and all 
felt that something must be done. 

The Senate bill received a first reading and 
was referred to the standing committee on fees 
and salaries. From that hour it was the focal 
center of legislative interest. County officers all 

The Speaker of the House 7 


98 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


over the state were endeavoring by every possi- 
ble means to insure its defeat. Ferdinand 
Slicker understood his business. He was there, 
in the House, to study the members; to ascer- 
tain values; to beguile the unwary; to make 
bargains with the unscrupulous. For years he 
had been a factor in State politics. He was a 
washer in the many-wheeled machine. He sub- 
dued friction, hushed the tell-tale rattle and 
squeak, and collected grime and filth. 

Fontaine’s hereditary dislike to the fellow 
never got the mastery of him before; but that 
evening after adjournment, when Slicker pressed 
forward to shadie hands with him, he affected to 
have his attention instantly attracted in another 
direction, and to avoid speaking with him he 
left the hall by a side exit. The Scincoid was 
not in the least deceived, and his small eyes fol- 
lowed the speaker’s retiring figure and glittered 
with a peculiar malevolence. 

That evening, after he had dined, Mr. Fon- 
taine locked himself in his room and slept two 
hours, before dressing for a call upon Miss Nor- 
gate. She had arrived in the city that day, and 
had duly apprised him of the fact. 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


99 


On this occasion she was again the guest of 
Mrs. Froude, the governor’s daughter. They 
were school-girls together at Vassar, and after 
Mabel Townley married and settled in the capi- 
tal, Edith seldom let many weeks pass without 
making her friend a brief visit. 

The governor dined at Mrs. Froude’s that 
first evening, by invitation. He preferred his 
hotel to domestication under any private roof, 
even his daughter’s; but her children amused 
him, her dinners were excellent, and her frequent 
invitations were always accepted. 

Edith’s spirited talk made him forget the pas- 
sing minutes. He had known her ever since the 
days of her school intimacy with his daughter 
Mabel. She had made one long visit at their 
home in Studor County, a year or two before his 
wife’s death; and he remembered how pleased 
Mrs. Townley had been with her intelligence 
and high spirits. He was still lingering in Mrs. 
Froude’s cozy family parlor, when Fontaine en- 
tered, and he noted the half-suppressed flush 
and flutter with which Edith received him. He 
measured them with his eyes, as they stood in 
the act of hand-shaking. 


100 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


“A splendid couple! ”he remarked mentally. 
“Fontaine is lucky. She likes him. He is in a 
fair way to gather his harvest of prizes, while 
he is young enough to enjoy them.” 

A few minutes later he took his leave. 

Edith’s ripe beauty was at its best that night; 
but, though Fontaine was not blind to it, it ap- 
pealed to him in vain. She always dressed richly 
and in the mode, and no unit of all the thou- 
sand small accessories of the toilet was ever for- 
gotten by her, when that unit could add to the 
elegance or witchery of her appearance. Her 
movements were the perfection of unstudied 
grace, and her conversation was never lacking 
in charm. 

After the governor had gone, Fontaine re- 
garded her a few moments with grave atten- 
tion. She returned his steady look, waiting for 
him to speak, a smile of happy expectancy on 
her lovely lips. 

“I was thinking,” said he, “that you are even 
more dazzling to-night than on that other night, 
when I took you to the Stiver Salver; or did 
you take me.?” 

“I believe I took you,” she replied; “and I 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


lOI 


would remark, in passing, that such compliments 
from you are not fine. The poor governor was 
attempting something in the same line, just be- 
fore you came. Bad form — decidedly bad 
form!^’ 

“Then what makes you get yourself up in that 
way.? You do simply dazzle, Edith; but I sup- 
pose it isn't right to say so, bluntly. How long 
is it since you were here before; six weeks or a 
century?” 

His gallantry sounded hollow to himself, and 
Edith, in her supersensitive mood that night, 
could not fail to detect the false ring. Some- 
thing had happened in her absence. 

A day or two after her last going home, he had 
sent her a letter which lifted her heart on a 
wave of triumph. It was not a lover’s letter, 
but barely fell short of it. It was written in a 
mood of happy exhilaration, which he did not 
himself understand. Edith then let the tumult 
of her long repressed feeling have its way. She 
lived and worked and talked with people, day 
after day, and lay awake at night thinking pas- 
sionately of Bruce, till the new day dawned. 

But no more such letters came. The notes 


102 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


which answered her spicy epistles were brief 
and hasty, telling only of business. 

“He is overworking,’^ she thought, with a pang 
of tender pity. She did not expect a visit from 
him, as that was not possible; but when she 
could wait no longer without seeing him, she 
went up to the capital. 

“Your work begins to tell upon you, Bruce,” 
she said kindly. “You have lost a little flesh 
and color.” 

“Don’t tell me I have lost any hair,” he said, 
passing his hand over the thin place on his crown. 
“I don’t mind the flesh, as that may come back, 
and the color I would rather do without; but I 
part with my nut-brown locks rather painfully. 
The fact is I have been following your advice 
about accepting invitations, and there’s where 
the extra strain comes in. To stand around at 
a ball, even if a fellow doesn’t dance, till three 
or four in the morning, then attend a committee 
at eight, and from ten to five preside over the 
House, to say nothing of having to run the gaunt- 
let of the lobby every evening, all that, I say, 
is enough to make a lazy man tired.” 

“I should think so!” said Edith. ‘‘You have 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


103 


been following my advice with a vengeance. 
Well, if you follow it in future, you will not at- 
tend another ball till the end of the session/^ 

‘‘That suits me exactly. Lent begins to-day/^ 

“You absurd boy! What do you know about 
Lent.J^’^ 

“Atwater knows; he is a churchman. But be- 
cause you advise it, is reason enough. I accept 
no more invitations.’^ 

He was the genial, confiding good comrade of 
old, as nearly as he could make himself such. 
He talked a great deal, and changed the subject 
often. When he had gone Edith remarked 
mentally: 

“Something has happened. I must find out 
what it is. 


CHAPTER X 


Within a week Mr. Fontaine broke his reso- 
lution, and accepted an invitation. This time 
it was not a ball, but a dinner for gentlemen 
only, at the house of Mr. Hollis. McNulty gave 
a knowing tap to his own card, in its big creamy 
envelope. 

“It will be the supper of the season,” said he. 
“Nothing left out that can make a man glad he’s 
alive! I suppose you know, Bruce, what Tom 
Hollis means by this forgatherin’.” 

Fontaine affected ignorance and McNulty went 
on delightedly: 

“He has a little axe under the table, that will 
be brought out later on, for the legislative whet- 
stone. The new school-book law means a fat 
contract for somebody, and Tom’s right in line, 
with his big printing-house, here in the shadow 
of the capitol. The educational committee will 
be there, every man-jack of ’em, and a picked 
lot of the rest of us, distinguished either for 
104 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE I05 

brains or buncombe. And the next day or the 
day after, Tom will be around, feeling after that 
little job. If his wine is what it used to be. I’ll 
tumble to anything he wants;’^ and with an airy 
flourish of his hands, and a careless laugh, Mc- 
Nulty strode away. 

Fontaine’s time was so exactly filled, during 
the days and evenings that intervened, that 
though he wearied himself with longing to see 
Lillian, he could not possibly call upon her at 
any conventional hour. With Edith it was 
different. She would talk with him while she 
took her breakfast, or rise after she had retired, 
and dress in ten minutes, for the sake of a five 
minutes’ interview with him. 

Between Lillian and himself the distance 
seemed to him so great that, though he was 
consumed with impatience, he feared to intrude, 
and waited his time. He went to Hollis’s ban- 
quet hoping to meet her, if only for a few mo- 
ments; but was not at all certain that he should, 
for on such occasions the ladies were usually in- 
visible. 

A striking incident occurred that evening, il- 
lustrative of the character of the girl he loved, 
and he was witness to it. 


io6 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


Mr. Hollis's guests were, with one or two ex- 
ceptions, assembled in the library, and the din- 
ner hour was almost at hand. Bruce missed his 
handkerchief, and went out into the hall, to get 
it from his overcoat pocket. Fortune was 
kind, for just then Miss Crandall’s voice reached 
him — the voice he loved. 

A tall Japanese screen stood half way down 
the hall, partly hiding the doors opening into 
the family parlor, and the conservatory at the 
end. Lillian was speaking to some one beyond 
the screen. As Fontaine turned to re-enter the 
library, he could see the group. A tall negro 
servant stood motionlessly erect, holding before 
him the “wee nippie’^ tray, with its spirit-lamp, 
copper kettle, glasses and liquor-flask. He was 
on his way to the library, and Lillian had inter- 
cepted him. 

“Do not take that tray into the library, 
Ephraim; I forbid it,” she said. 

“Pahdon, miss, but Mistah Hollis’ ordahs — ” 

“I can not help it,” she interrupted in a low, 
earnest tone. “Mr. Hollis will not reprove you. 
I will see him myself.” 

Just then Hollis appeared on the scene, from 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


107 


the back parlor, and comprehended at a glance, 
his sister-in-law’s attitude, 

“Go on, Ephraim,^’ he said. 

“Stop where you are, Ephraim, said Lillian. 
Then turning to her brother-in-lav^ she said, 
softly, hurriedly: 

“Tom, you shall not take brandy into that 
room. Swithin McNulty is there! It would 
send him off on a week’s debauch!’’ 

“Swithin sends himself off, when he goes,” 
said Hollis. “Go on, Ephraim.” But before 
the man could obey, Lillian seized the flask, and 
with a dextrous throw, sent it flying through the 
open door of the conservatory, where it crashed 
among the flower-pots. 

The darky stood motionless and expression- 
less as a bronze statue, holding his tray before 
him, till Hollis, whose momentary anger gave 
way to amusement, said: 

“Take the tray away, Ephraim, and stand 
guard over the sideboard. No ladies in the din- 
ing-room, mind you.” 

Some light wines were served at dinner. 
Fontaine, alive to some newly awakened sense 
of responsibility, turned down his glasses. No 


io8 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


one followed his example, and even Doctor At- 
water sent in his direction a glance of mild sur- 
prise. 

The dinner was a prolonged but not tiresome 
affair. The menu and attendance were excel- 
lent, the host urbanity itself. The talk was 
both sensible and witty; and the readiest man 
with jest, repartee and toast, was the Irish mem- 
ber, as McNulty was facetiously dubbed. Fon- 
taine, as well as others, was struck by his ap- 
pearance that night. His shapely figure was 
well set off by evening dress. He was fond of 
flowers, and nearly always wore a bunch on his 
coat. That night it was red carnations. He 
had markedly handsome hands, and as he talked, 
sang and laughed, his fine solitaire flashed con- 
spicuously, with their quick, graceful move- 
ments. 

The “little axe’^ was not in evidence that 
night. 

How much may be crowded into certain brief 
seasons of a man’s life! From the moment 
when Bruce Fontaine sprang out of bed at seven 
in the morning, mind, spirit and body were 
strung to the point of effective, responsive ten- 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


109 


sion. He read the papers while he breakfasted. 
Then came the revisal in committee of the pre- 
vious day’s journal. At ten he took his place 
at the speaker’s desk, and for hours guided the 
ofttimes fractious, sometimes turbulent assem- 
bly, with the alert precision of a skillful team- 
ster driving a mettlesome four-in-hand over a 
mountain road. 

The legislative term was two thirds gone, and 
a great bulk of business was yet to be accomplish- 
ed. Members were grumbling about delayed 
reports, and clamoring to have their bills handed 
down. The first weeks of the session were con- 
sumed chiefly by parties who had individual 
measures to push, and were skillfully persistent 
in engrossing the attention of the House. This 
abuse — the abuse of turning the General Assem- 
bly into an agency for forwarding special inter- 
ests loomed up in startling proportions before 
a few thoughtful, conservative men, who pos- 
sessed at least a modicum of the spirit of true 
statesmanship. 

The necessity of a constitutional amendment, 
lengthening the term of an assembly’s sittings, 
was another matter made vividly apparent at 


I lO 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


this session. The weeks which were enough, 
sixty years ago were not enough now, and for 
the new goveror to call an extra session, would 
lay him open to the charge of reckless extrava- 
gance, by the opposite party. 

County and township bills, ditch bills, road 
bills, school bills and a multitude of other bills, 
ranging in importance from a bounty on owl 
scalps to a revision of the general tax-law, had 
accumulated on the speaker’s desk and awaited 
a final disposition. .Members were jostling each 
other for precedence, and besieging the speaker 
and the House for attention to their pet schemes. 

Through it all, Fontaine preserved a cool 
head, and while endeavoring to steer clear of 
direct personal collision, used his influence to 
dispatch the most important business and for- 
ward the ends of good state-craft. 

Still he was blamed, and as the session wore 
on he became aware that the House contained a 
knot of disaffected men, who, upon slight pro- 
vocation, would develop into active enemies. 
The laxity of many who had preceded him, in 
the matter of enforcing some of the standing 
rules, had created a certain precedent, which he 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


III 


was expected to follow. When he struck out 
on new lines, his course was stared at by these 
men, in cold surprise, which finally turned to 
hot dislike. 

Mr. Ferdinand Slicker continued to visit the 
State House, haunting the corridors and cloak- 
rooms, intent upon performing the work for 
which he was paid, that of defeating the fee and 
salary bill. Shorehill and Kane, two members 
who had taken offense at Fontaine, made com- 
mon cause with him, and the three were often 
seen together. 

One day, about a week subsequent to the 
Hollis banquet, Edith Norgate made a visit to 
the capital with Mrs. Froude. After a brief call 
upon Mrs. Froude’s father, in his private office, 
they went to the representative’s hall. Edith 
had never seen Bruce preside, and on this oc- 
casion she found him in a testy humor. Time 
had been wasted, and nothing accomplished 
that would redeem the day’s journal from being 
a record of trivialities The speaker’s voice rang 
out with a certain sharpness, and the suspicion 
of a frown darkened his brows. 

When the two ladies entered he glanced up 


II2 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


to the gallery where they were seated, and rec- 
ognized them with a bow and smile; then turned 
to give the privilege of the floor to “the gentle- 
man from Haines.’^ The aforesaid gentleman, 
a slow-spoken cattle-dealer* proceeded to ha- 
rangue the House upon the enormities practiced 
by the west side stock-yards. At the end of his 
drivel, recognition was granted “the gentleman 
from Cameron;” and that boyish-looking mem- 
ber hastened to make the concise statement, 
that the legislature had just as much right to 
regulate the business of the Hartford Insurance 
Company as it had to interfere with the stock- 
yards. 

These inanities failing to interest Edith, she 
sat at her idle ease, admiring the graceful col- 
umns of the gallery, and the rich coloring of the 
mullioned windows. Then her glance wandered 
from man to man, throughout the wide hall, 
but always returned to the speaker. Her thought 
was: 

“How perfectly he suits me!” 

A spasm of emotion, half pain, half delight, 
contracted her heart, and sent a mist of tears 
to her eyes. A happy and satisfied wife, view- 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE II3 

ing her husband in an assemblage of other men, 
has a moment of tender pride. Something of 
the same fond feeling moved Edith, but it was 
tinged with sickly doubt and hope deferred. 

There w'as a little stir at the main entrance 
of the hall. Judge Colby’s florid face appeared. 
He was speaking with a doorkeeper, who im- 
mediately passed in a party of four ladies, and 
another attendant conducted them to a comfort- 
able sofa on the north side of the hall, which 
commanded a good view of the House. The 
party consisted of Mrs. Colby and Mrs. Hollis, 
who always made one visit to each branch of 
the legislature, during its session, and of Misses 
Marian Colby and Lillian Crandall. 

As they were being seated, Edith turned from 
them to regard Fontaine. On his face was a 
new look — one she had never seen before. Only 
such hypersensitive observation as hers would 
have noted the passing expression, as his glance 
fell upon the tall, slender figure of Lillian. The 
subtle strangeness which had hung about him of 
late was explained He had a secret, and the 
secret was this other woman. 

Edith sat as in a suffocating dream. The 

The Speaker of the House 8 


114 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


yeas and nays were being called upon some- 
thing, she did not know what. The roll-clerk 
finished the tedious list with “Mr. Speaker,” and 
Fontaine voted “aye.” At the same moment 
he beckoned to Mr. Maddox, of the ways and 
means committee, and that gentleman advanced 
with dignity and took the speaker’s place. Font- 
taine descended from the platform and went 
over to the ladies, seated outside the bar of the 
House. It was an unusual and very marked at- 
tention, and many heads were turned in his di- 
rection. The judge’s lady and Mrs. Hollis rose 
and greeted him impressively. He saluted the 
young ladies, and moving a chair to the end of 
the sofa, seated himself near Lillian, who turned 
to him the face he worshiped, with its shadowy, 
oriental eyes, and cheeks like pomegranates. 

He remained by them during theii short stay, 
and when they departed he accompanied them 
to the door and around the corridor, to the en- 
trance of the Senate Chamber. When he re- 
turned, he lifted his eyes to the ladies’ gallery ; 
but Edith and Mrs. Froude had gone. Once 
again on the rostrum, his attention was drawn 
to Atwater, who had risen in his place, though 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE II5 

not for permission to speak. His eyes were 
upon his desk, and his hands were nervously 
shuffling together some papers, which he trans- 
ferred to his breast-pocket. Then, without 
glancing in the direction of the chair, he left the 
hall. His face looked strangely old. 


CHAPTER XI 

The speaker’s face wore a look of benign con- 
tent. What mattered it that he had somehow 
managed to displease both his oldest and truest 
friends.^ What mattered it, that the worst bore 
in the assembly had risen to a point of order, 
and wandered to a point as remote from the 
matter in hand as the antipodes.!^ When he had 
taken leave of Lillian, at the door of the Senate, 
he had said, for her ear alone: 

‘‘When may I come to see you.?” 

And she had answered softly: 

“To-morrow evening, after eight, I shall be 
disengaged.” 

The house adjourned that afternoon at five 
o’clock, and immediately afterwards a page came 
to Mr. Fontaine with a message, requesting his 
presence in the room of the committee on fees 
and salaries. He found there, besides the com- 
mittee, a number of the strongest men from the 
towns, Maddox, Kemp, Burnet and others, with 
116 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE II7 

a representation of county members of the solid 
sort, like Breck of Stillwell. 

The subject before this caucus was, of course, 
Senate Bill number 9, and an amendment to the 
bill which the committee had decided to submit. 
Much to his surprise Mr. Fontaine found himself 
standing alone, or nearly so. The effect of the 
bill upon the next general election was what 
almost every man present thought of, solely 
and altogether. The speaker went out from the 
conference, feeling that he had surprised his con- 
freres, and wondering somewhat at himself. 

His first impulse was to go and talk the mat- 
ter over with Miss Norgate. Some latent sense 
of loyalty to an old tie made him determined to 
do so, and comfortable habit made it easy. 

Deep in his heart rested the anticipation of 
the approaching interview with Lillian — ‘‘to- 
morrow evening, after eight^’ — and it filled him 
with tender joy. Should he tell her then of his 
love.? He did not know. The emotion within 
him was strong enough to subdue unseemly ex- 
citement and haste, and fill him with gentle 
patience and sweetest hope. 

As he was about leaving the Helicon House 


Il8 THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 

that night, he met Doctor Atwater, who had 
just entered from the street. There was a pro- 
fessional air about his carriage, and even in the 
sound of his footfalls, as he came down the tiled 
floor, directly toward Fontaine. The latter 
met his grave glance with a conciliating, boyish 
smile, and laid his hand familiarly on the doc- 
tor’s shoulder. He did not know what was 
meant by the film of alienation which had come 
between them of late. He only knew that he 
loved his old chum, and would not easily be 
shoved to a distance. 

“I have just come from McNulty,” said At- 
water. 

“Why, where is the boy.^^” asked Fontaine. 
“I have observed that he has not been in his 
seat for three days. A rumor reached me yes- 
terday that he was ill. I have intended looking 
him up, but have been crowded with business, 
till this evening. I could go now and pay him 
a visit. Where is he.?” 

“At the Sherwood. He left this house, you 
remember, some three weeks ago. He is never 
settled long in one spot. He is in a bad way 
now, and you had better not call to-night. I 
am going back presently.” 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE II9 

^^Who is his physician?’’ 

“Dr. Haskins has the case in charge — genu- 
ine ma7iia a potu, I was called in at Mack's re- 
quest, this afternoon. It appears that through 
the fall campaign he abstained from stimulants 
entirely. That shows what he is able to do. 
All winter, however, he has been drinking more 
or less, and that night at Tom Hollis’s banquet 
he began to bowl up for this. He never turned 
in that night at all, and you know he has been 
in the House only two or three times since.” 

“I ought to have looked after him,” said Fon- 
taine, in a pained tone. 

“So ought I,” said Atwater. “His brother 
Mark — a fine young fellow that —called for me 
at the House this afternoon.” 

“Is he violent?” 

“Not all the time, only restless and all broken 
up. He has times of raving, when he would 
destroy himself if he were allowed the chance.” 

“We must keep his condition a secret, if pos- 
sible, on account of — many reasons,” said Fon- 
taine. “And when I can be of any service, day 
or night, let me know.” 

‘‘I will,” said Atwater. thought you ought 


120 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


to be apprised of the reason of his continued ab- 
sence from his seat in the House. As for keep- 
ing his condition secret, circumstances make 
that an exceedingly difficult matter; but we will 
do the best we can.’^ 

As Mr. Fontaine stood waiting for a car which 
would take him to within one block of Mrs. 
Froude’s residence, a procession of unanswerable 
questions trooped through his active mind. His 
was not a consciously philosophical tempera- 
ment, but the lack of a comprehensible sequence, 
in the general scheme of things, filled him with a 
passing irritation. Why should a brilliant and 
strong man like McNulty become the slave of 
a degrading appetite.^ Lillian’s spirited action, 
on the night of the banquet, looked pitiable to 
him, on account of its futility. She must have 
known that wine would be plentifully served at 
dinner, so why throw away the brandy As 
Tom had said,“Swithin sent himself off.” Indi- 
vidual integrity played but a sorry part, on this 
crazy planet of ours. Why should he himself 
take a stand on any question, which would make 
him a target for spite and ridicule 

He was strangely disturbed, and turned his 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


I2I 


thoughts resolutely to other things. Then sud- 
denly the face of the girl beloved beamed upon 
his mental sight, and he noted the sweet curves 
of her lips and chin, as she chanted softly for 
him: 

"‘What though we miss 
All else but this — 

To be good is enough.’* 

“I am turning sentimentalist,” thought he. 
When he rang the bell at Mrs. Froude’s, he felt 
sure he had come to the right place for a cure. 

Governor Townley was cozily ensconced in 
front of his daughter’s parlor fire. One of his 
pretty granddaughters was leaning on his shoul- 
der -wnile the other, a child of five, sat on his 
knees, listening to a story of grasshoppers 
that talked and wore swallovv^-tailed coats; and 
of strawberries so large that a little girl could 
eat one out hollow, and then build a baby-house 
inside. Little Flossie clapped her hands and 
exclaimed: 

“And the light, coming through the walls 
would be such a lovely pink!” 

Mrs. Froude and Edith laughed merrily at 
the baby’s idea, and the handsome, white-haired 
gentleman laughed too, as he remarked: 


122 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


“You see Flossy inherits her imagination.” 

“It is a clear case of atavism,” said Mrs. 
Froude, “for if my life depended upon it, I 
could never invent such stories as grandpapa 
does, to amuse these little wonder-lovers.” 

“Let us plan our grand picnic all over again,” 
said Flossie, “just as we did the last time you 
were here.” 

But the governor declined going over in de- 
tail the program of the most delightful picnic 
that was ever conceived. A hint of the mag- 
nificence of the proposed affair was given by 
Clara, the older girl. 

“Just think of the lemonade there will be, 
when a million lemons are squeezed into Reed’s 
lake, and men come with wagon-loads of sugar, 
and shovel it in, like it was sand!” 

Flossie was about to add other items of de- 
scription, equally extravagant; but her grand- 
father succeeded in hushing her up, and both 
children were bribed to go to bed, by the prom- 
ise of a long drive on the morrow, in the gover- 
nor’s carriage. 

Mrs. Froude was just leaving the parlor with 
the little girls, when Mr. Fontaine was an- 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


123 


nounced. He was very cordially welcomed, but 
for the first time in Edith’s company he felt him- 
self de trap. Both gentlemen seemed slightly 
embarrassed, and the governor very soon took 
his leave. 

‘‘What made him hurry off.'^’^ asked Fontaine. 
“I did not come to run any other fellow out, 
least of all His Excellency, the Governor.” 

“O, he is at home here, you know,” said Edith, 
“and comes and goes as he pleases. I have no 
idea your calling had anything to do with his 
sudden departure; though a visitor does some- 
times feel prompted to go, when afresh one ap- 
pears on the scene. At least, I felt that way 
this afternoon.” Bruce laughed. 

“If you had remained ten minutes longer, I 
should have climbed to the ladies’ gallery, to 
shake hands with you.” 

“That would have been courtesy overdone,” 
said Edith. “When I visit the legislature of 
my state I do not ask a ‘suspension of the rules’ 
on account of my presence.” 

Her voice was liquid and musical as ever, and 
her smile bland and sweet; but Fontaine felt 
that he was out of favor. He was somewhat 


124 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


out of favor with himself, and rather coveted 
reproof. 

Sitting there alone with him, Edith felt her 
irritation melting away. Her glance wandered 
over his face and person, noting every familiar 
line, and the unuttered cry of her heart was: 

“He is so dear — so dear! I have known and 
loved him so long, and I am losing him for- 
ever!’^ 

“When is Senate Bill No. 9 coming up again?” 
was her next remark, and Fontaine replied: 

“Next week, I think, the bill will be finally 
disposed of. I will endeavor to have it brought 
forward as early as possible, now. It ought 
not to be postponed any longer.” 

“I would let the committee and the House 
run that bill in their own way, if I were in your 
place,” she said. 

“Perhaps I might as well,” said he; “but I am 
really interested in the passage of the right kind 
of a fee and salary bill; very much interested, 
indeed.” 

“I would curb my interest, and exercise my 
prudence,” said Edith. “There will be the wild- 
est mob of a lobby in town, next week, that 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 125 

ever besieged a state house. The people want 
the bill passed, and the man who actively op- 
poses it will not be forgotten by them; while 
the member who throws his influence in favor 
of it, will incur the enmity and future opposition 
of the office-holders and local politicians. But 
why do I tell you all this, when you know it as 
well as I do?” 

“You are giving me a friendly caution. I 
thank you for it, though I fear it will be thrown 
away.” 

“I suspect as much,” she said. “The fact is, 
Bruce, you have stunned me with surprises this 
winter. What call was there for you to offend 
members of the assembly and others, by enforc- 
ing rules that had been trampled upon for years, 
till they were practically dead?” 

“Rules, Edith!” he broke out; “that all nar- 
rows down to a single matter, almost too squalid 
to talk about with a lady. Five or six men are 
mad at me, because I closed up the bar in the 
basement of the capitol. There is a joint rule 
forbidding the sale or display of intoxicating 
liquors in or about the State House. Old man 
Spooner — the lieutenant governor,! should say — 


126 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


united with me in demandi ng that the stuff be 
removed. The engineer of the building had 
charge of it, and kept himself so full that he 
was unfit for his duties. He and the general 
custodian, and perhaps four other men, have 
done a lot of private kicking; but I don’t care. 
I have no use for a legislator like Shorehill, who 
cannot wait two hours between drinks.’’ 

Edith had turned a trifle pale, and her lips 
wore a meaning smile. 

“I did what I did,” said Bruce, ‘‘because I 
thought it right. How does that sound to you.^” 

“Callow — very callow indeed. Yours will be 
no exception td the usual fate of reformers. I 
can not get over my wonder at the change in 
you. I supposed that no man knew better than 
you, that to be politic was the way to get on in 
politics.” 

“I like to do as I please.” 

“But in a wise and methodical order; success 
comes before power, and power before independ- 
ence. A man standing just where you do must 
trim his sails for all winds. I very much fear 
you will not be the youngest congressman ever 
sent down by the old State.” 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


127 


To this he replied: 

“I’d like very well to go to congress. I’d 
like to go early and go often; but whether I do 
or not, I have determined to go on record, in 
this fee and salary business. I shall manage 
that the bill, with the proposed amendment, is 
debated in committee of the whole, and that 
will give me an opportunit3f^to speak to the 
question, on the floor of the House.” 

“And you will speak, of course, in the inter- 
est of right 

The sneer in her voice was very evident, 
though her fair face showed only the kindest 
interest. She rose hastily, gathered up a couple 
of books from the table and carried them over 
to the piano, in a purposeless way. Returning 
to her chair she broke out: 

“I wish I were in your place just now. I 
wish I were you, I would look back over my 
early struggles for an education and a start; 
over the hard, good work I had done; over the 
rapid strides of these last years, and the triumph 
at the opening of this session, and I would love 
Bruce Foutainc to the extent of ignoring every 
earthly consideration that stood in the way of 


128 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


his success! I would press and strive till I had 
gained a vantage ground so high that I could 
fearlessly afford to take the higher ethics into 
my plans of action. A striving man can not al- 
ways afford to do that.” 

“Perhaps not,” said Fontaine, thoughtfully. 

She fancied she had impressed him, with her 
logic of self, and continued: 

“If a chemist, now, should think it his duty to 
swallow a dangerous drug, in order to ascertain 
its true properties, you would think him unwise.” 

^^Sans doute. I’d tell him to try it on a 
dog.” 

“Because a corpse — political or other — ceases 
to be useful in the world. Because to commit 
suicide puts an end to all practical effort, to- 
ward any result whatever.” 

Then she laughed, and repeated the phrase, 
“try it on a dog,” and after a moment remarked: 

“I venture to say, Bruce, that I am the only 
woman of your acquaintance who has ever 
heard you use slang. That’s because we fished 
together, with pin-hooks, off the end of the same 
old log. Don’t be vexed at what I have said 
to you, and don’t forget it.” 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


129 


‘‘ril not forget it/’ he replied dutifully; but 
she little guessed the exact impression her words 
had made. 


The Speaker of the House 


9 


CHAPTER XII 


Fontaine sat, or rather reclined, in an easy 
chair before the open fire. He had picked up 
a pamphlet from the table and made it into a 
roll, and with it he gently tapped his knee, as 
he gazed with a peculiar smile into the purring 
flames. Edith grew restless, as he continued to 
muse. She arose and lighted a sconce over the 
mantel, and laid another lump of coal on the 
grate. 

He watched her movements with his old time 
admiration for her graceful manner, but in the 
light of her recently propounded doctrine of self, 
she was on the farther side of a great gulf fixed 
between them. Once his ambition would have 
taken fire, at the flame of hers, but not to-night. 
Was his ambition dead.^ He knew it only 
slept, fearing to startle some new-born motives 
and emotions which fluttered, half-fledged, in 
his consciousness. 

“Simple rectitude can not be very difficult.’^ 
130 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE I3I 

How he adored the innocent unworldliness 
which could say that from the heart ! 

To Edith, the impress of another personality, 
the effect of another mind than hers, upon the 
strong-natured man before her was clear as the 
light of day. When she contemplated the fact 
that another woman younger than herself, with 
undeniable beauty, and the air of a gracious 
princess, had waked in his breast a tenderness 
which she could never stir, she could have, cried 
out in resentment and groveled in jealous pain. 
When she thought of this other girl holding him 
back from a brilliant career, she was stung with 
pity, and would by any manner of means have 
rescued him. What effort would she not have 
exerted to save the friend of years from the 
fatal risk of meeting with one whom she con- 
sidered weak and narrow, incapable of keeping 
step with a rising public man. 

A thousand conflicting emotions and thoughts 
passed through her mind, as she rearranged the 
small articles on the mantel, and looped back a 
silken drape whose fringe was swaying in the 
chimney draught. Resting her arm on the mar- 
ble, she lifted one small, French-booted foot to 


132 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


the fender-rail. It was icy cold, as were also 
her hands, with suppressed agitation. 

How calm he was! Would he never lift his 
eyes, or move.^^ She pulled a creamy tea-rose 
from a jarful of them on the mantel, and brushed 
it slowly across his mustache, filling his nostrils 
with its rich fragrance. Then he caught her 
hand, and took the rose out of it, and after giv- 
ing the velvet palm a playful scratch with the 
prickly stem, he drew the latter through his 
buttonhole. 

She went to a little table in the corner and 
rattled a box of chess-men, looking at him over 
her shoulder. He shook his head with a smile. 

“Not to-night, Edith. I should like to dawdle 
over a game for two hours, but have as many 
hours of writing to do, before I sleep.’’ 

“Poor boy!” she said. “How I would love 
to do it for you 1” 

He looked at her gratefully. 

“You are very kind,” said he, “and I know 
how excellently well the writing would then be 
done; but I must do it myself.” 

When he was quite ready to go, she gave him 
her hand. 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


133 


“Good-night/’ she said, looking up at him, 
her face whiter than he had ever seen it. 

“It seems like good-bye. Changes are im- 
pending, perhaps for both of us. I have a feel- 
ing that we may never meet again on the ac- 
customed footing. Kiss me, Bruce, for the sake 
of old times. 

He caught her to his breast and kissed her 
cheek and brow, and last of all her hand, but 
did not touch her lips. 

She turned back to the hearth and stood 
there, her proud head drooping. The petals of 
his rose were lodged in the bosom of her gown. 
She picked them out, one by one, and dropped 
them on the coals. 

“What could have been her meaning?’’ Fon- 
taine questioned, as he braced himself against 
the wind and strode down street, his pulses 
slightly quickened by that parting act. 

“Changes impending for both of us. Is it 
possible she is including the governor in her 
careful plans? If no party reverses occur, the 
next assembly will elect him to the United States 
senate. There can scarcely be a doubt as to 
that, and Edith knows it as well as another. 


134 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


He is not a rich man, but Edith can carry the 
airs and manners of wealth, without the actual 
thing, better than any one I know/’ 

Again he recalled her peculiar pallor, the tre- 
mor of her body, in his embrace, and the cold- 
ness of her smooth cheek, as he kissed it. 

‘‘She is a strange girl,” he said to himself. He 
was aware that she could follow an impulse reck- 
lessly, but that she could suffer deeply, on his 
account, did not occur to him. 

Throughout the following day the minutes 
dragged, and the hours seemed interminable. 
The speaker presided over the House mechan- 
ically, lifting his eyes many times to the broad 
clock dial, over the main entrance to the hall. 
The words and scenes of the past night seemed 
far removed. He lived only for the night ap- 
proaching. 

Atwater was absent from his seat the entire 
day. Fontaine knew he was with McNulty. 
He decided mentally that after his visit on Ber- 
nard Street that night, he would go down to 
the Sherwood, and stop with McNulty as long 
as the doctors would let him. 


CHAPTER XIII 


Few longed-for passages in life, prove quite 
what anticipation paints them. Fontaine’s even- 
ing with Lillian, by her own appointment, lacked 
something, of the exalted pleasure which had 
wreathed it in his hopes. He thought, as he sat 
in her presence that night, that he had some- 
times been nearer her in a crowd, or in brief 
moments of meeting or parting, than at that 
hour, when they were by themselves alone. At 
such remembered moments she had turned to 
him, with a look in her dusky eyes which had 
penetrated to his inmost being, and he had an- 
swered it with one of fire and dew, from his 
own. 

His heart, that night, was so full of the one 
great question of destiny, that his remarks upon 
any subject sounded to himself vapid and trivial. 
He asked her to give him some music, because 
he wished to be silent; and because she too 
found it difficult to converse, she felt a sense of 
relief at the request. 


135 


136 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


She seated herself at the piano, and spreading 
open an old music-book, began the recital of a 
dreamy, uplifting composition. He observed 
that the score was in manuscript, and went over 
to the instrument, to look at it more closely. 
She paused in her playing to explain that the 
symphony was one of her father’s composing. 

“He is a genius in music,’’ she said, “and in- 
deed in other things. I wish you could know 
my father.” Then she waved him back to his 
chair with a smile, and began the passage once 
more. She played on and on, while minutes 
passed, 

“You must say when you have had enough of 
this. . I never know when to stop.” 

He nodded, without speaking. The sweet 
tones filled him with a passionate pleasure; but 
he knew he listened and enjoyed as the uncul- 
tured do. He understood absolutely nothing of 
music, as a science or art. There were so many 
things which formed a large part of this dear 
girl’s life, of which he knew himself to be hope- 
lessly ignorant ! What would she think of him, 
if she knew him just as he was.^ 

The ring of the door-bell reached them 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


137 


through the music, and a little later Ephraim 
came to the drawing-room door, with a card 
on a silver tray. 

“It is Doctor Atwater, said Lillian. “Rather 
a late hour, for one as ceremonious as he.” 

“That means that I have stayed an unpar- 
donable length of time,” said Fontaine. 

“O, no!” she said, with a lovely smile. “This 
is your evening, and it is not nearly gone 
yet.” 

Atwater entered at that moment. At sight 
of Fontaine an expression of surprise crossed 
his face, which was very pale and serious look- 
ing. Then suddenly he turned to him, with an 
air of earnest confidence. 

“I am glad to find you here,” he said. “I 
have a request to make, or a favor to ask, or” — • 
he hesitated a moment — “a suggestion to lay 
before Miss Crandall. It is of a singular charac- 
ter, and I count upon your help, Bruce, to pre- 
vail upon her to consider it favorably.” 

Turning to Lillian, he went on: 

“I have not forgotten the remarkable power 
you possess to soothe and relieve the sick by 
your will-power and touch.” 


138 THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 

She sat down, making a deprecating gesture 
with her hands. 

“O, Doctor, do not speak of that! I would 
willingly forget it forever!’’ 

'^Forgive me, Lillian,” he said, touched by 
her evident distress. ‘‘How can I forget it, when 
I see every known and understandable method 
of science set at naught by a demon of disease.^ 
I know what 4 promised, the last time, at home; 
but I could not help thinking of you again to- 
night. You have that wonderful gift; it can 
not be denied.” 

“I would gladly throw it away, if I could.” 

“It is a gift of God,” said the other solemnly. 
“But you must not do too great violence to your 
own feelings. You are entirely justified in re- 
fusing to see this case, if you choose to do so. 
It is a very painful one to see.” 

Fontaine felt a rising indignation against At- 
water, whose visit and words had moved Lillian 
so strongly. 

“Is your patient a lady or a child.^” Lillian 
asked. 

“Neither,” was the reply. “The patient is a 
man, and the case is one of delirium tremens.” 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


139 


“Swithin McNulty!’’ exclaimed Fontaine* 
“Atwater, you surely do not think what you are 
asking. For one like Miss Crandall to see a 
stranger in such a state would be hard enough, 
but one who was once a friend, or at least an 
acquaintance — ’’ 

“I know,” the doctor interrupted, “I should 
not have come. But you can not conceive what 
efforts vv^e have made to save him; and to give 
up now, goes hard. And there is his brother 
begging us to do something more.” 

“Poor Mark!” said Lillian. “He is devoted to 
Swithin.” 

“I know Mack’s history,” Atwater resumed; 
“and while I blame, I also commiserate him. 
He began drinking under pressure of overwork 
and speculation. He was in a certain southern 
city, where if a man doesn’t patronize the local 
product, he can’t do business. Of course he 
drank incredibly. For a time last autumn he 
surprised every one by keeping sober, but this 
winter he has repeatedly yielded to temptation.” 

“And temptation assailed him in this house, 
not two weeks ago,” said Lillian, rising to her 
feet. “I tried to shield him, but I could not. 


140 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


Doctor, I will go with you, but I must start at 
once. I dare not pause to consider. Will you 
not go too.^” she said, turning to Fontaine, who 
of course had but one answer to make. 

Then she hesitated, and seemed to quail again, 
from the undertaking. 

“My sister is out of town, and she or some 
other lady should go with me.” 

Fontaine suggested Mrs. Colby, and Atwater 
said: 

“My carriage is at the door; I feel sure she 
will acompany us, but I will drive to her home 
and see.” 

“She will not refuse, if I ask her,” said Lillian. 
“Her house is on our way, and we will call for 
her; it will save time.” 

“You are goodness itself!” said Atwater. 

She went up to her room for hat and furs, 
but did not tarry to change her dress. As she 
came down, drawing on her gloves, she said to 
the tall negro who lingered about the hall: 

“I am going out, Ephraim, with Mrs. Colby. 
You can tell Mr. Hollis so, if he asks for me, 
when he comes home. And you need not sit 
up. I will let myself in, if it is late.” 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


I4I 


In the parlor, she turned to Atwater with the 
question: 

‘‘What is it you expect me to do?’’ 

“I hardly know,” he replied; “but remem- 
bering your remarkable influence over Ralph 
Oliver, away there at Los Gatos, I could not 
help wondering whether you might not be able 
to quiet McNulty, His case is most pitiable. He 
is a massive creature, full of blood and nerves. 
He has a large brain, which has been in com- 
mand of well-trained mental forces. Now the 
whole colossal structure is in ruins.” 

“Does he know the people about him .2” asked 
Fontaine. 

“Not to-day, with any distinctness,” was the 
reply. “When Doctor Haskins first saw him 
he was rational, with the exception of momen- 
tary illusions. The case is, in some respects, 
without a parallel in my observation. He is 
living in constant, excited action, after having 
gone without food and sleep for days. There 
will be a sudden break, before many hours.” 

“And he will die?” 

“I think so. He must die from exhaustion, 
unless he obtains relief very soon indeed.” 


142 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


“I am ready,’’ Lillian said, and moved to- 
ward the door. Suddenly she stopped and 
turned to Atwater, saying: 

“Let us repeat the Apostles’ Creed.” They 
turned to the east, and in one voice recited it 
solemnly to the end. 

To Fontaine it was a strange rite, and he had 
a sense of being an unnecessary third party. 
At the street door, however, she voluntarily took 
his arm. 

“Do you know,” she said, as they went care- 
fully down the icy steps and flagging, “that I 
say the Creed very much oftener than I say my 
prayers. My life is so smooth and fortunate 
that I seem to have nothing to pray for, for 
myself. ” 

They picked up Mrs. Colby, drove rapidly to 
the Sherwood House, alighted and went in. Doc- 
tor Atwater led the way into a room adjoining, 
the one occupied by the sick man and his at- 
tendants. Here the ladies seated themselves, 
Mr. Fontaine remaining with them. Mrs. Colby 
was nervous, but Miss Crandall was not. The 
agitation which she had shown when Atwater 
made known his errand, had entirely dis- 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


H3 


appeared. Fontaine watched her every move- 
ment, as she laid aside her hat and wraps and 
drew off her gloves. She wore a dinner dress 
of reddish brown, extremely rich and warm in 
effect. 

Mark McNulty came into the little parlor. 
Mrs. Colby shook hands with him, and then 
Lillian did the same, looking up into the boy’s 
pale face with a smile of hope and cheer. His 
blue eyes filled with tears. In the next room 
Atwater’s voice could be heard, and another 
voice, weak and hoarse, speaking words of angry 
refusal. There was a sound of shod feet, tramp- 
ing restlessly up and down. 

Presently the door opened, revealing a large, 
well- lighted apartment. 

“Let us go in,” said young McNulty. 

“I will remain here,” said Mrs. Colby, whose 
nervousness increased. “Do you mind, if I let 
you go in with the gentlemen alone .^” she asked 
Lillian, and the latter shook her head. 

Fontaine was close beside Lillian, and at the 
door Atwater placed himself at her other side. 
The hired attendants had been sent out of the 
room, and no one was with the maniac but Doc- 


144 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


tor Haskins, who walked at his side, partially 
supporting him. McNulty was without coat or 
vest, and his shirt was open at neck and wrists. 
Fierce pulses throbbed at his throat and tem- 
ples, but his face was pale. 

“I must get his attention, ’’said Lillian. Mark 
went up to his brother, and said in a voice of 
pained entreaty: 

“Swithin, stop! Attend a moment. A lady 
wishes to speak with you.” 

At the sound of his brother's voice the man 
turned his wild, blood-shot eyes, first upon Mark, 
then upon Lillian, who had approached directly 
in front of him. A sudden, awful terror seemed 
to seize him. He trembled from head to foot, 
and a cold dew stood on his forehead and lips. 

“What frightful torment now.?” he gasped. 
“Where is the limit to his cruel power, when he 
can come in the guise of an angel of light!” 

He drew back, and raised a threatening hand. 
Atwater’s arms were about the slender girl in 
an instant, and other quick hands arrested the 
blow. Then a new, strong spirit came upon 
Lillian, and she felt herself upborne upon a wave 
of courage and power. She seized the madman’s 


‘What frightful torment now?” he gasped. 


PageliS 


























THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


147 


hand in both hers, and holding his wild eyes 
with her own, so clear and steady, she said, in 
an intense, ringing voice: 

“Listen to me, Swithin McNulty, and believe 
me! There are no devils in this room! There 
are none anywhere in the world save such as 
men’s sins have created, for their own punish- 
ment. You have suffered enough. God is mer- 
ciful. He is going to give you relief and rest. 
Obey me, and sit down!’^ 

Without removing his fixed gaze of fear and 
wonder, he suffered himself to be led to a large, 
reclining-chair near the middle of the room, 
and sank heavily into it. Then Lillian laid her 
cool palms on his eyes, shutting out the light 
and pressing down the swollen lids. Standing 
over him thus, she was simply conscious of a 
great, insistent wish, to see this tormented being 
sleep. She felt for him an intense loathing, 
overlaid and softened by an intense pity. His 
forearms were tattooed with punctures of the 
hypodermic needle, and his muscles palpitated 
like those of a runaway horse, arrested in mid- 
flight. 

Fontaine and the two physicians stood very 


148 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


near by, fearing treachery, and alert for his 
slightest movement. But he did not move. 
Something more potent than bromine or opium 
was bathing his tense nerves in a kindly stupor. 
Minutes passed ; upon the silence of the room 
came at length a welcome sound, the regular, 
heavy breathing of profound slumber. They 
placed a chair for the delicate, silken-robed girl, 
and she seated herself beside her charge, hold- 
ing one of his sinewy wrists in each small hand. 

After all had grown quiet, Mrs. Colby stole 
in, and took a seat near Lillian. The room 
grew chill, and Atwater brought her fur wrap and 
laid it over her shoulders, and placed a hassock 
for her feet. She thanked him with a smile, but 
did not move her eyes from the sick man’s face. 
She sat thus for nearly two hours, then left him, 
still sleeping profoundly. 

Fontaine took the two ladies home. Mark 
McNulty accompanied them out to the carriage. 
To Lillian he said: 

‘‘God only knows how grateful I am to you! 
You have saved a human life. Let that thought 
be your reward for this trial. 

Mrs. Colby talked a good deal, on the way to 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


149 


her home, about McNulty, and Lillian’s wonder- 
ful success in quieting him. 

“How did you do it?” she asked, and the girl 
answered wearily: 

“I do not know. I do not understand it, any 
more than you do; but I felt sure from the mo- 
ment my eyes rested on him, that I could make 
him go to sleep. It is a mystery, dear Mrs. 
Colby and all mysteries are unpleasant; so please 
do not speak of it again to me, and I especially 
wish you would speak of it to no one else.” 

They left the judge’s lady at her own door, 
and finished the drive to the Hollis mansion in 
silence. Fontaine conducted Lillian into the 
vestibule of the silent house. The gas-light fell 
fifll on her face, and he was shocked at her pale- 
ness. At the same moment she took his arm 
for support, saying: 

“I am so tired!” 

In the parlor she threw off her hat and wraps, 
breathing with long sighs, and then dropped 
wearily on the sofa and closed her eyes. 

He bent over her and asked: 

“What can I do for you?” 

“Please get me some water from the dining- 
room; and be quiet as you can.” 


150 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


He brought it, almost instantly, and after drink- 
ing, she returned the glass with a smile and said: 

‘H’ll not faint now. For a moment I thought 
I should. O, I never felt so tired in my life!” 

He uttered some half articulate words of ten- 
der pity, as if speaking to a little child. 

am really all right now, Mr. Fontaine,” she 
said, “and you should go. It is nearly morning — 
your carriage is waiting, and what is a graver 
fact, your day’s work will not wait while you 
take your rest. I can sleep all day, if I 
choose.” 

He drew up a chair beside her and sat down. 

“I should like to remain a little longer,” he 
said, “till you are quite yourself again.” 

Atwater had put his arm around her and 
drawn her back, when McNulty made that threat- 
ening move. He wondered how he dared do it. 
He wondered if he might hold her hand. He 
ventured to take it timidly. It was cold. She 
let him hold it, till it grew moist and warm in 
his clasp. Through that slight contact he gave 
her back something of the energy she had ex- 
pended. Her cheeks and lips got back their 
color, and a soft light glowed in her half-veiled 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE I51 

eyes. Presently she rose from her reclining 
posture and said: 

“Now, I am really all right again.’’ 

In the hall they said good-night. She went 
upstairs, and he went out to the waiting car- 
riage. 


CHAPTER XIV 

Mrs. Froude breakfasted late, alone with her 
guest. Her husband, a prosperous lumber- 
dealer, had left the house at seven, to look after 
consignments of native walnut and hard maple. 
His petted wife gave him a sleepy good-bye kiss 
from her pillow each morning, had a gay good 
time in her own fashion all day, and gave him a 
very wide-awake welcome home at six o’clock 
each evening. 

Mrs. Froude adored her father, the white- 
haired governor. She would have been very 
happy, if he could have brought himself to make 
his home with her; but as he preferred another 
way, she heartily conceded him the right to do 
as he pleased. She even went so far as to con- 
cede him that right, in her mind, when it dawned 
upon her that he might be contemplating mar- 
riage, and with a lady a trifle younger than her- 
self. 

She loved Edith for her own sake, and she 
152 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


153 


knew her admirable tact and adaptability. 
Things would always go smoothly where she 
ruled, for she would compel smoothness by sheer 
pressure of her own strong individuality. To 
herself she said: 

‘‘She would take good care of the dear old 
man. She would assist him at his duties, as no 
secretary could, and at the same time preside 
most gracefully over his home. She would fill his 
days with life and interest. He fancies her, and 
it is a good idea.’’ 

Over the breakfast cups one morning, a few 
days after Fontaine’s last visit, she said to 
Edith: 

“What would your father do, if you were to 
marry .J”’ 

“He is not in the least dependent upon me 
for a housekeeper. Aunt Ruth is always there, 
you know. If I were obliged to give up assisting 
him in his editorial work, that would, indeed, 
be a serious matter. He is old and feeble, and 
ought now to sell the paper and retire. I would 
gladly go out of that line of work, and use my 
pen upon something less ephemeral.” 

“But marriage might put it out of your power 


154 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


to use your pen at all, with any purpose or con- 
tinuity. What would become of you then?” 

Edith laughed and said: 

“What put the question of my marrying or 
not marrying into your head just now, Mabel?” 

“O, I always get around to that, you know,” 
Mrs. Froude replied. “And I’ll own that I’ve 
thought of it more than once, in connection with 
the brilliant young speaker of the House. If he 
were less young or you, my dear, a trifle young- 
er, it might be just the thing.” 

Edith’s acute perceptions made her aware 
that, in reality, her friend did not think it just 
the thing at all. She led her on to speak of 
Fontaine, however, by remarking: 

“Bruce has more than once said to me that 
he did not like young girls at all. And though 
no longer a lisping miss, I am a whole half year 
younger than his highness the speaker. But I 
agree with you in thinking there ought to be 
more difference in age.” 

“O, a great lot more difference!” declared the 
little matron, who always talked to Edith like a 
school-girl. “But he is the sort of man to win 
the interest of women and girls. No woman 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


155 


could be indifferent to him, whom he chose to 
impress.” 

Edith listened fascinated. 

‘‘He is less self-conscious than any man I ever 
met; yet he is handsome, and commanding, and 
as correct, I suppose, as you might expect any 
man in his position to be — though you can not 
be sure of a man’s morals till he is at least fifty. 
There is one girl in this fine old city who has 
felt his charm.” 

“You perhaps refer to Lillian Crandall,” said 
Edith, speaking with careful indifference. The 
cheek nearest the fire had grown redder than the 
other. She picked up the morning paper and, 
folding it small, used it as a screen. 

“Have they been seen together much, this 
winter.?” she asked, 

“Not very often, but occasionally They say 
he visits at Hollis’s and Tom runs after him a 
good deal. But Tom never does anything, dur- 
ing a legislative session, but cultivate the in- 
fluential members; and he usually reaps profit 
in some form.” 

“You perhaps base your surmises as to their 

caring for each other, upon what we saw at the 


156 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


State House the other day. I should say there 
was nothing in that. Bruce has that impressive 
way of addressing himself to ladies. There were 
years when he never addressed them at all. But 
I can remember the years before that.’’ 

“I do not say he cares for her,” said Mrs, 
Froude. “I should rather say he did nothing of 
the kind. But I saw them together at the mu- 
nicipal ball, a few nights before you came, and 
Lillian looked to m.e every inch a girl in love. He 
appeared, not exactly diffident, but cautious; 
as if he had a piece of rare porcelain or Venetian 
glass in charge, and was not quite certain as to 
the proper way of handling it.” 

‘‘And she was condescending, of course.” 

“Of course, as you say — very gracious indeed, 
but condescending. I am proud, and as a rule I 
like proud people, but honestly and truly, Edith, 
I dislike such pride as hers. I dislike that whole 
churchly lot! They are narrow and haughty! 
I once invited Mrs. Lew Parvin to an informal 
luncheon. I could see, by the lifting of her 
brows, that I had made a mistake. And very 
soon she informed me that it was a saint's day 
or a fast day, something or other of that kind, 
and she could not consistently accept.” 


THE SPEAKER 6F THE HOUSE 


157 


“She is one of the very strict ones, I have 
been told,” said Edith. 

“And Mrs Judge Colby is another,” Mrs. 
Froude continued. My father just lifted her 
husband to the supreme bench, two years ago, 
as certainly as though he had been the governor, 
and placed him there by appointment. Last 
winter, when Dr. Steele was holding evangelistic 
services here, and his eloquence was calling out 
the entire city, I ventured to ask Mrs. Colby to 
attend our church with me one evening. She 
smiled superior, and said she had never cared 
much about noted preachers. With her the altar 
was higher than the pulpit.” Edith laughed, 
and said: 

“I think you got off very easily, after the lib- 
erty you had taken.” 

“Their church is a threadbare convention!” 
declared Mrs. Froude with emphasis; “and they 
are all slaves to conventionalism. By the way, 
what do you think of Lillian’s practicing faith- 
cure in Ellersport.^ There is an overstepping 
of the usual limitations, that I confess surprised 
me. I wonder if Mr. Fontaine ever heard of it.” 

“Yes,” Edith replied; “I mentioned the sub- 


158 THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 

ject to him once myself. I have forgotten what 
he said.’^ 

“I fancy,” said Mrs, Fronde, “if he believed 
it, he would think twice before marrying a wom- 
an whose children were likely to be nervous 
freaks, mesmerists or clairvoyants.” 

“O, Mabel!” laughed Edith; “how you do 
run on about any one you don’t like!” 

The two ladies adjourned to the morning par- 
lor, and Mrs. Froude ordered the carriage for 
an appointment at her dress-maker’s. 

Edith picked up a writing pad, and began 
penciling a leader for the Hillhurst Times^ which 
would be quoted and commented upon by half 
the papers in the state. The article was a skill- 
ful setting forth of what Miss Norgate knew and 
believed and predicted, touching the proposed 
salary law. 

The subject was at the moment the most 
important one in the public eye. It occupied 
the little knots of legislators which could be seen 
standing about corridors and committee rooms, 
and in the hotels. 

The people of a state are supposed to do the 
law-making of the state, through their repre- 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


159 


sentatives. Usually they are content to stand 
more or less quietly aloof, in the attitude of dec- 
orously interested spectators of the legislative 
hippodrome. Letters of advice are sent to 
members, and the State newspapers voice an 
undertone of sarcastic grumbling over the in- 
effectiveness of legislatures in general and the 
inane uselessness of the particular body then 
sitting. Periodically, however, some long felt 
public want needs attending to; the tax-laws 
must be tinkered, or the criminal code revised. 
Upon this assembly had fallen the duty of in- 
terfering with the perquisites of an army of office- 
holders, and the representatives were about as 
comfortable as barefoot boys in high oats, with 
the oats full of yellow-jackets. 

For days the agents of the office-holding in- 
terest, with Mr. Slicker as commanding officer, 
had been getting in their work at the capital. 
It was an open secret that members had been, 
so to speak “held up,” and their opinions and 
pledges asked for, at the end of a repeating 
weapon, charged with threats and direful prog- 
nostications. Money and promises were freely 
employed, with, in some instances, humiliating 
results. 


l6o THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 

Early in the session the Senate framed and 
passed a fairly equitable fee and salary bill, and 
sent it on to the lower house. The House com- 
mittee held it for weeks and at length suomitted 
it with an amendment which made of it a piti- 
able compromise. Under its provisions, county 
officers then serving, as well as all those elected 
at the last general election, could go on under 
the old statute, and were not to be affected by 
the new. Many of these officers had a four 
years’ term before them, and the probabilities 
were that the next assembly could be wrought 
upon to repeal the law, before its workings had 
been tried. 

‘Ht is a humbug, of course,’^ said Mr. Maddox 
of Lambert; ‘^but let it go through. We will 
have passed a fee and salary Jaw, as we prom- 
ised, and the kickers will have been quieted as 
welL’^ 

This kind of farcical legislation was no new 
thing to Fontaine. For a moment he was 
tempted to say: 

“It is the best we can do.” Then came a re- 
vulsion of sentiment, and with a sudden flash of 
temper he declared: 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE l6l 

“It is not the best we can do. It is cowardly 
to. go back on the Senate in that way. We 
asked them to make a bill for us, and they sent 
us a good one. Now to pass it with an amend- 
ment that kills its practical use as effectually as 
to strike out the enacting clause, is too small 
work for me.’’ 


The Speaker of the House 


II 


CHAPTER XV 


Mr. Maddox was thoroughly demoralized. 
He came down intending, for his part, to carry 
out the pledges made by the party in the autumn, 
to rid the counties of the cumulative fee nui- 
sance. But the extent and determination of the 
opposition dismayed him. He said to Fontaine: 

“The party has more to fear from the state 
wire-workers, who are opposed to the measure, 
than from the people at large; and Fve about 
reached the conclusion that it will be the best 
party policy for us to defeat the bill, or pass it 
with the amendment/^ 

“I do not regard the matter as simply one of 
party peril or policy,’^ said the speaker. “The 
party can take care of itself; and in the long 
run, it usually takes care of the fellows who 
make the best use of their brains in the cause, 
not only of the party, but of the public interest 
as well.” 

Mr. Fontaine could always count upon a cer- 
162 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


163 


tain following; and when the bill came up, and 
was debated in committee of the whole, Mr 
Maddox in the chair, the speaker took the floor 
and made what was universally conceded to be 
the strongest and most effective speech of the 
session. His terse eloquence had the telling 
merit of coming from sincere conviction, and as 
the discussion progressed he could see that many 
eyes were being opened to the absurdity of pass- 
ing the bill, with the stultifying amendment. 
After placing the bill in order for the following 
day, the committee rose at a late hour. 

On the next afternoon, the hall of represent- 
atives was a scene of ill-suppressed excitement. 
The space between the walls of the room and 
the brass rail that formed the bar of the House, 
was packed by a determined lobby favoring the 
amendment. The friends of the amendment in 
the seats, Mr. McNulty being of the number, kept 
up a continuous murmur, like a hive of bees. 
The consideration of the fee and salary bill had 
not been set for a particular hour, and it was 
purposely kept back, and time consumed by 
other and less important matters, till toward the 
usual time for adjournment. 


164 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


At last it was brought up, and a hush settled 
over the packed lobby. They knew a vote was 
pending, and the only influence left them to use 
was that of their united presence. The debate 
began again on the amendment; it had pro- 
grossed but a short time, when suddenly, as if 
in response to a signal, Robertson of Belmont, 
a quiet old gentleman who had not been heard 
from half a dozen times during the session, rose 
in his place. A score of men were on their feet 
at once, claiming recognition, but Fontaine said, 
in his firm, resonant tones: 

“The gentleman from Belmont. 

And Robertson, trembling with excitement, 
moved that action be at once taken on the main 
question. They tried to drown his voice, but 
the motion was promptly seconded by Breck, 
and the speaker put it in due form. The House 
was a bedlam. McNulty stood in the aisle 
brandishing his fist, and upon refusing to sit 
down, when ordered to do so, Fontaine in the 
voice of a major of dragoons declared: 

“If the disorderly gentleman from Scott does 
not instantly resume his seat, the sergeant-at- 
arms shall remove him from the hall.^^ 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 165 

McNulty sat down. 

Some one called for the yeas and nays, on 
the previous question, and the roll clerk began 
at once, a score of pencils keeping the tally. 
A page ran up to the speaker’s desk with a 
note — Edith’s last word of warning from the 
gallery. 

‘‘If the House ties don'ty voteT 

“A tie! a tie!^^ went with a ricochet over 
the house. 

“Mr. Speaker,’^ called the roll-clerk, and Fon- 
taine promptly voted “Aye” — at the same mo- 
ment giving his head an airy toss and casting a 
laughing glance at Edith in the gallery. The 
Senate bill became a law, without the House 
committees’ amendment. It meant a matter 
of a few thousands apiece to some hundreds of 
office-holders. It meant also, a matter of a few 
dollars apiece to some thousands of citizens, to 
whom the units were of as great moment as the 
thousands to the others. 

“On your head rests the good or ill of this 
act,” said Atwater to the speaker, after the ad- 
journment, which followed immediately upon 
the vote. 


1 66 THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 

‘‘Your course was very straightforward, and 
you steered the measure safely into port, with 
you own hand. Whatever the results, you are 
largely responsible.’^ 

The same assertion was hurled at him, in a 
different tone, by the blatant mob into which the 
friends of the amendment and their backers re- 
solved themselves. 

“When Robert Bruce Fontaine comes up, as 
a state or national candidate, he’ll hear from 
this,” said one. 

“Candidate!” shouted another, with an oath. 
“His case will be settled in convention. There’s 
where our little game will come in I” 

“What’s the matter with McNulty?” asked 
Fontaine of his friend the doctor, before they 
separated that night. “He has behaved like a 
lunatic about this fee and salary business, ever 
since his recovery and return to his seat. Is it 
possible that his brain is still affected?” 

“I do not think so,” said Atwater; “and I do 
not believe he cares a fig whether the clerks and 
recorders get their usual pickings or not. But he 
is generally disgruntled with himself and the 
world, and he seems to have conceived a strong 
dislike to both yourself and me.” 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 167 

‘‘I think that rather strange under the circum- 
stances,” said Bruce. “I have never done him 
an unkindness, and you have, as I know, ren- 
dered him valuable service.” 

After a moment’s thought, Atwater continued: 

‘‘His recovery seemed like a miracle, from 
start to finish. After that long sleep, he took 
food and rest regularly for two days and came 
out then, a well man. But he seems to have 
lost something morally, which he cannot get 
back. He has gone several steps downward in 
his associations. The Scincoid and Shorehill 
are with him constantly and a fellow named 
Dent.” 

^^That hound!” said Fontaine. 

“Where does he belong.^^” 

“He used to belong right here in the capitol. 
You couldn’t have had much to do with the State 
House bar, or you’d have seen him. He was 
the general custodian at the beginning of the 
session. When we enforced Joint Rule No. 21, 
he was very angry, but kept rather quiet. 
A while later I discovered he was still smuggling 
whisky into the basement. Then I reported 
him to the governor, and had him removed from 


i68 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


his office. Since then he has been making dire 
threats. I’m very sorry Mack has fallen in with 
that crowd. 

‘‘Yes, for if he drinks, however gradually, he 
will fetch up where he was two weeks ago, and 
then it will be all day with him. Mark keeps a 
close watch over him, and tells me Swithin con- 
fines himself to the tonic his physicians pre- 
scribed, and is not drinking; but one can never 
tell.^’ 

They were in the reading-room of the Hel- 
icon, and Fontaine, who was attired for the 
street, turned to go out, when Atwater spoke 
his name, and came toward him, a little diffi- 
dently: 

“There was one thing I — Miss Crandall left 
town very soon after that night. 

“The next night, I believe,” said Fontaine. “I 
have wanted to ask you whether you knew why 
she went. I called at the house, but there was 
no one at home but servants; and I do not know 
Hollis very well. I thought perhaps you had 
heard from her.” 

Atwater shook his head. 

“Perhaps I did wrong, to take her there that 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


169 


night. She may have heard of it the next day 
in a way that annoyed her; and it was some- 
thing of a trial at the time.” 

Fontaine reflected that he only knew how 
much of a trial it had been. To the other he 
said: 

“I have felt more anxious over the matter than 
you would understand. And — because I cannot 
do otherwise — I am going to Ellersport to see 
her, the first hour I can call my own.” 

He said this with a look and tone whose 
deeper meaning Atwater was not slow to read. 

During the remaining days of the session 
Fontaine hardly talked five minutes at a time, 
with a single member. The appropriation bills 
occupied the House, and a number of minor bills 
had to be carried through as ‘‘riders.” There 
was the usual wrangle for attention to pet meas- 
ures, and the usual inconsequent dispatch of 
business that characterizes the final round up. 
Several times, during those last days, Fontaine's 
innate kindliness prompted him to approach Mc- 
Nulty as though no cloud of any sort had ever 
come between them. He pitied the bright, er- 
ratic fellow, and had always liked him. He 


170 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


had known him do generous, unselfish deeds, 
and save for his one failing, he was interesting 
and lovable. He met the speaker’s advances 
with a cold civility, entirely unlike the frank, 
genial nature that he was. His old cordiality 
was gone, and he himself seemed to be going — 
no one could tell whither. 

The assembly closed on the tenth, with a 
night session. The governor and other State 
officers happened to be present; and after the 
sine die adjournment, they with others — strong 
and good men— gathered about the speaker, and 
gave him hearty congratulations and thanks, 

“I am proud of your approval,” he said briefly. 
“I’ve made plenty of mistakes, no doubt, but 
I’ve done the best I could.’ 

How rejoiced he felt, that the long strain was 
over. He liked work, and would take it up 
again in some form, to-morrow or next week. 
But the satisfaction of having completed a 
somewhat wearing task was enough for that 
night. And before any future plans of action 
could be decided upon, the vital question of his 
heart must have an answer. He learned that 
Mrs. Hollis was at home again, and he knew 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


I7I 


Atwater had called. He would have spoken to 
him again about Miss Crandall, but something 
in his friend’s manner restrained him. 


CHAPTER XVI 


Lillian did not sleep all day, following her 
visit to the Sherwood, as she had implied to 
Fontaine that she would. She awoke about ten 
the next morning, feeling refreshed and strangely 
happy. The events of the past night recurred 
to her; she did not dwell upon them, but res- 
olutely put them aside. 

She decided for once to be very lazy, and take 
her breakfast in bed. She rang for a servant 
and gave her order, and then peeped out through 
the heavily curtained windows. It was snow- 
ing steadily and a stiff north wind was eddying 
and whirling through the street. She said to 
herself: 

“No one will come to-day. I will take my 
coffee, and then doze a while before I dress. 

Secretly and very earnestly she hoped some 
*one would come. She remembered Fontaine’s 
solicitous kindness, when he brought her home. 
She recalled the look of concern on his hand- 
172 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


173 


some face. Ah ! it was tender concern, and his 
low-spoken words had an accent of endearment 
that she could not forget. And then he had 
taken her hand and held it, in a gentle yet close 
clasp, and the half dying, exhausted feeling had 
passed away, and she had grown strong and 
quiet. With shut eyes and smiling lips, she 
recalled minutely that last hour, even to the 
humorous look in his eyes, when, as he bade her 
good-bye in the hall, he invited her to come 
again to the State House. He had said: 

“There will be some exciting days before long. 
It may even be dangerous on the floor, but the 
ladies* gallery is always a safe place,’’ 

Lillian wondered if he would not call that 
evening to learn whether she was entirely well. 
Without admitting it to herself, she confidently 
expected he would. She arose and dressed be- 
fore luncheon, No one was at the table at that 
meal but her brother-in-law and herself. Mr. 
Hollis told her, as an item of news, the fact that 
Mr. McNulty was ill; had not been in his seat 
in the House for over a week. 

“And the outrageous feature of the case is,” 
said Hollis, “that he is laid off with the jim- 


174 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


jams. They say he has gone through with a 
grizzly program this last week, but is better 
now.^^ 

Lillian said not a word, and Mr. Hollis con- 
tinued: 

“It is utterly incomprehensible to me, how a 
man with McNulty’s sense and natural force of 
character, could make such a degraded spectacle 
of himself, and be such a bore to every one who 
feels the slightest interest in him.’^ 

“Have you visited him?’^ Lillian asked, and 
he replied: 

“No, visitors are not in order. Atwater and 
Fontaine are the only members of the House 
who have seen him, I am told. They are all 
trying to hush the matter up. Doctor Haskins 
says he is confined to his room with asthma. 
Mark, poor lad, is -telling lies and using money 
to keep the papers from getting onto his true 
condition.’’ 

With his wonted facility, Tom wandered to 
another subject, and before the meal was con- 
cluded he got around to Fontaine, and his posi- 
tion on the question then absorbing the interest 
of the legislature. 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


175 


“I see/^ said Lillian, “the morning Herald 
criticises Mr. Fontaine for some of his late rul- 
ings and intimates that it is contrary to parlia- 
mentary precedent for the speaker to manifest an 
active personal interest in any question before 
the House/’ 

“The Herald,'"'* said Hollis, “wants the fee and 
salary bill defeated, or passed with the House 
committee’s amendment. Fontaine is strongly 
in favor of its passage as it came from the Sen- 
ate. I don’t quite understand him. It’s a tic- 
klish business, altogether, and no man ever had 
a better chance to stand from under a trying re- 
sponsibility. As it looks on the outside, Fon- 
taine is a Quixotic fool, in being so conspicuously 
active when he could so easily remain neutral. 
But I don’t believe he is a fool of that- sort, or 
any other. He knows what he is about, and 
Miss Edith Norgate knows also. There is no 
sort of nonsense about her, and her influence 
over Fontaine has always been very strong. 
She is in town now, and he visits her constantly.” 

“Yes,” said Lillian quietly, “I know she is in 
the city. I saw her in the gallery of the repre- 
sentatives’ hall a day or two ago; she was with 
Mrs. George Froude.” 


176 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


“And I saw Fontaine coming away from 
Fronde’s only night before last. She is a showy 
piece, and smart enough for a lawyer. They 
say Governor Townley acts as though he’d like 
to share his future honors with her. They, with 
the Froudes, made a box party at the Park 
Temple the other night. Sid Raymond says 
the governor was particularly well groomed, and 
very attentive, not to the play but to the lady.’’ 

“I thought men never gossiped,” said Lillian, 
as she rose from the table. 

“O, but they do, outrageously,” laughed Hollis 
with bluff frankness. 

The snow continued to fall and Lillian wan- 
dered uneasily, through the large, silent house. 
Mrs. Hollis had gone away the day before, to 
spend a week with a friend in a neighboring city, 
and Lillian felt the solitariness of this splendid 
childless home, as she had never done before. 
She looked about her, at all its costly and taste- 
ful appointments, and exclaimed to herself: 

“If I were Dorothy, I should hate all these 
things, if I could not have a child! O, I should 
wish for a houseful of them — splendid boys, who 
would look and speak and walk like their father, 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


177 


and dear daughters to wait upon and caress 
him!” She was all alone, but a warm blush 
mounted to her cheek at the unbidden thought, 
accompanied as it was by a momentary image 
of one about whom she constantly mused. 

A little later the Colby girls called, in their 
carriage, to take Lillian with them, if she were 
so disposed, to a meeting in the parish house 
of the Sisters of St. Agnes. Mrs. Colby had 
explained her absence from home the previous 
night, by stating briefly that she had been sent 
for to visit a sick friend. Her girls never pressed 
her for details, and they could scarcely have 
imagined the weird, pathetic scene of the past 
night, in which Lillian had been the most strik- 
ing figure — a figure to impress the memory and 
imagination, even more than that of the unhappy 
drink victim. 

Lillian was a member of the sisterhood whose 
pleasure and duty it was, during Lent, to work 
for the poor, and she accompanied Bess and 
Marian gladly. The three girls talked and 
laughed incessantly, from the moment they en- 
tered the carriage till they reached the parish 
house. They talked everything and nothing — 

The Speaker of the House la 


178 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


chiefly nothing, as is the way of giddy maidens, 
and Lillian enjoyed the frothy chatter, just as 
did the others, because she was young and light- 
hearted and was happy in the companionship of 
her friends. 

All through the afternoon, a swift thought 
would now and again flit through her mind: 

‘‘Would Mr. Fontaine come that night?’’ 

The sweet young sisters spent several hours 
over their charitable schemes, and then went 
into the church, where a service was held in the 
early dusk. The church was lighted by a few 
gas-jets about the chancel and over the altar. 
The radiance of the sunset sky came through the 
great west window, and took the rich colors of 
the glass. Lillian knelt with a throbbing heart, 
and through the penitential service, which she 
tried to follow devoutly, ran the under note of 
a personal prayer, not for pardon, but for greater 
happiness. 

“Dear God, make me sure of my love’s love!” 

Was it blame-worthy or shame-worthy for her 
thus to pour out the passionate treasures of 
her heart unasked? She never raised the ques- 
tion, and why should we? She was a child of 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


179 


nature, richly and peculiarly endowed; sensitive 
as the mimosa leaf, and affluent of feeling, as the 
lily of perfume. 

Fontaine, busy from an early hour, having a 
dozen absorbing matters claiming each moment 
of his time, did not cease to think of her. He 
knew it would be impossible for him to call upon 
her that night, and feeling an unconquerable de- 
sire to communicate with her in some way, he 
determined to write her a note and beg a reply. 
This was the letter he sent: 

“Dear Miss Crandall: — 

“I have thought about you very often to-day, 
and wished as often that I knew whether you 
had entirely recovered from the fatigue and ex- 
posure of last night. I would come in person 
to find out, but as matters are in the House to- 
day, I can not get away, without running away. 
Would it be asking too much, to beg you to send 
me just a line by bearer, to assure me that you 
are well.'^ My concern is very real. 

“Yours faithfully, 

“R. Bruce Fontaine.^’ 
Lillian had been gone with her friends, per- 
haps half an hour, when Fontaine's messenger 


i8o 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


called at Mr. Hollis’s with this note. Ephraim 
opened the door. 

“A letter for Miss Crandall. Will wait for an 
answer,” said the boy. 

“Miss Crandall is out driving,” drawled 
Ephraim, taking the letter and slowly closing 
the door. 

The messenger went back to Fontaine and 
reported. His first feeling was one of gladness 
that she was indeed well; for as he had said, 
his concern was real. Then followed a sense of 
regret at having missed her reply. He thought 
it possible that she might send him a note by 
post, for she would doubtless find his letter, im- 
mediately upon her arrival at home. 

But no word came, either that day or the next. 
He wondered a little, but he had no thought of 
blame, or sense of pique in connection with the 
matter. There was some reason, concerning 
which he would learn when he learned the rest. 


CHAPTER XVII 


The stars were out, and the street-lamps all 
a-glow, when the Colby carriage set Lillian down 
at her brother-in-law’s door. 

Mr. Hollis was in the library, where the small 
family always assembled before going in to 
dinner. 

Lillian went up to her room and laid off her 
hat and wraps, and then ran lightly downstairs 
and into the library. In her sweet, girl’s voice 
she said: 

^‘Am I late to dinner, Tom.^ You, by the way, 
are a little early;” glancing at the clock on the 
mantel. 

Hollis was standing on the rug, looking at the 
fire. He turned slowly, as she came forward, 
and she could see in an instant that the usually 
good-natured man was angry. 

“If you are late, you are excusable,” he said, 
ironically. “Professional people can not always 
be punctual. I suppose you have been visiting 
patients.” 


181 


i 82 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


“Visiting patients! I have been to the par- 
ish-house and to church with the Colby girls/’ 

“Were you out with the Colby girls last night ?” 

“No, I was out with their mother. I suppose, 
Tom, you have learned that I was at the Sher- 
wood, and what for. I only hope you have 
learned the simple truth, unadorned and un- 
garbled.” 

He replied in a cold, hard voice: 

“I have learned enough to authorize me to 
forbid your ever again doing so eccentric a thing, 
while a member of my household.” 

“I did not want to go,” she said, with a pa- 
thetic tremor in her voice. “Doctor Atwater 
came for me. Mrs. Colby went with me. 
Where was the wrong.!* What have you heard?” 

“I heard your name mentioned down town, 
by strangers, in connection with Doctor Haskins. 
I went to Haskins and he told me all about it. 
I have expressed my mind to you before, about 
this sickening fad. Lillian, I tell you, you have 
nothing to gain by taking this headstrong 
course, and everything to lose.” 

“Tom, I have told you that I went against 
my own will, so how can you call me head- 
strong? And what, pray* will I lose?'’ 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 1 83 

A look of low cunning came into the man’s 
face as he said: 

“You will lose Bruce Fontaine, if he hears of 
this. He is a man of sense, and would despise 
such a piece of sensational folly, as quickly as 
I would. 

She grew white with anger, at this indelicate 
thrust, but replied calmly: 

“I believe I should regret the loss of Mr. Fon- 
taine’s friendly esteem rather more than the 
loss of yours.” Then a sense of amusement 
touched her as she recalled the words, “if he 
hears of this.” 

“We will go to dinner now,” said Hollis, 
pompously, “and no more night rides, remember, 
to treat Dr. Haskins’ cases. And such a case! 
That erratic, ill-balanced fool of a McNulty — ten 
to one, he has been shamming from the start!” 

“Tom,” said Lillian, “I wish you to know 
that I consider your words and tone and manner 
ungentlemanly and offensive.” 

“And I,” said he, “wish you to understand 
that your coming home at two o’clock in the 
morning, and allowing a man to enter with you 
and remain an hour, while his carriage waited 
outside, is offensive to 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


Her dark eyes glowed in her pale face, as she 
said: 

‘‘You have questioned Ephraim. I suppose 
he told you who the gentleman was, who came 
home with me.” 

“He professed not to know.” 

“And I do not choose to tell you. I do not 
choose either, to dine with you. And I shall 
leave your house by the first train that will take 
me to Ellersport.” 

They were in the hall, halfway to the dining- 
room, when she said the last words; and with- 
out looking at him, she turned and went up 
stairs. A few minutes later Hollis appeared at 
her door, which she had left wide open. 

“Come down, Lil, and eat your dinner,” he 
said in a tone which showed that his anger was 
gone, and he felt only awkward and apologetic. 

“I have no appetite,” she said, “but I ought to 
eat, for I have a night journey before me.” 

“A night journey — nonsense!” he exclaimed. 
“You must not go away like this. What will 
Dorothy think. ^ She will be dreadfully pained 
and worried!” And Lillian rejoined: 

“I shall write to Dorothy. She would not 



Her dark eyes glowed in her pale face. 


Pag«184 














THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 1 87 

wish me to stay where I had received an insult.’^ 

He saw she could not be coaxed, any more 
than she could be bullied, and turing away with 
a muttered exclamation, he went down to the 
dining-room. While she was busily packing, a 
servant came up with some dinner on a tray, an 
attention for which she was thankful. 

She came down stairs, presently, attired for 
the street, with a small traveling-bag in her hand. 
Ephraim stood in the hall as usual, and giving him 
a dollar she asked him to see a transfer agent 
and have her trunk sent in the morning. Hollis 
came out of the library and, without speaking, he 
put on his overcoat and hat and took the bag 
out of her hand. They walked half a block in 
silence, entered a street-car and rode to the rail- 
way station. There Lillian darted past her 
brother-in-law, and bought her own ticket. He 
waited till she turned around, then handed her 
the bag and strode out of the depot. 

Her journey home was dismal enough. The 
coach was cold and comfortless, and there was a 
change of trains, and a two hours’ wait, at a 
country station. She reached Ellersport in the 
chill, wintry dawn, and n^anaged to gain ad- 


i88 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


mission to her home, without disturbing her 
father. She surprised the old gentleman at his 
nine o’clock breakfast, and he was overjoyed to 
see her. 

He was a s»hort, stocky man of sixty-five or 
over, with large, rugged features, and very hand- 
some teeth and hands. He h^d rough-looking 
gray hair and a full beard; and under his bushy 
brows shone a pair of deep-set, thoughtful gray 
eyes, which filled with happy tears at sight of 
his daughter. 

“Why father,’^ cried Lillian, releasing herself 
from his bear like embrace, “I never dreamed 
you wished to have me here, or I would not 
have remained away so long!” 

“That’s all right, my child,” said Mr. Cran- 
dall. “On the whole I like being alone a good 
deal, and I wish you to spend your winters in 
the city, with your sister. When you are here 
a while, I fret myself for fear you are feeling 
moped and lonely. Still, it gives me a fine sense 
of pleasure to see your dear face, and to know 
that you felt constrained to rush home in this 
sudden way, just to see your old daddy.” 

“There, papa dear,” said Lillian, “I have a 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 189 

confession to make, and I will make it at once. 
I did want to see you, now that I think of it, 
more than I ever did before, when away for 
a while. I have thought of you almost constantly 
of late; but that was not the reason of my com- 
ing just now. Dorothy was absent and Tom 
took it upon himself to be dictatorial and dis- 
agreeable, and I cut matters short by coming 
away.’* 

“So you had a quarrel.” 

“Tm afraid we had. Shall I tell you all about 
it.?” 

“No; details are tiresome. Tom is a very 
common fellow, and none too agreeable to me 
at any time. If he presumed upon his relation- 
ship to thrust his self-complacent boorishness 
upon you, you did right to leave; but not right 
to quarrel. But let the matter drop. Dorothy 
is well, I hope — or I believe you said she was 
away. I would suggest your making a full ex- 
planation to her She understands Tom. He 
makes life very smooth for her with his money, 
and she will defend him. All the same she will 
exonerate you.” 

“I have my letter to Dorothy in my mind, 


igo THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 

and will write it to-day,” said Lillian. “Now 
papa, tell me the news of the neighbors, and 
after you have had your smoke we will have old 
Bayard harnessed, and drive out for a look at 
the town.” 

Within a few hours, Lillian had settled into 
the accustomed routine of the home life, as 
though she had never been absent. When 
evening came there was another royal winter 
sunset, and she recalled that at the same hour 
yesterday, she had watched the brilliant rays as 
they strained through the stained windows of St. 
Stephen’s. 

“I think John Atwater might have brought 
you home,” Mr. Crandall said that evening, as 
they sat awhile together, after dinner. “You 
must have had a beastly uncomfortable journey.” 

“It wasn’t very pleasant,” Lillian rejoined, 
“but Doctor Atwater did not know I was com- 
ing, and could not well have left his place in the 
House just at this time.” 

“You have seen him often, of course,” her 
father pursued. “He is a man one can afford 
to spend a little time upon. I rather long, now 
and then, for an hour’s chat with Atwater. He 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE IQI 

never did another so crass a thing as to allow 
himself to be sent to the legislature. A gentle- 
man is sadly out of place in that bear-garden/^ 

Lillian looked up at the strong, bearded face 
of her father with a glance of wondering re- 
proach. 

‘‘What makes you speak in that way, papa.^ 
I think the representatives fairly represent the 
people. There are rough, plain men there, 
sent by citizens of the same class. And there 
are other members, beside, Doctor Atwater, who 
are gentlemen in the fullest sense of the word; 
men of brains and cultivation.’’ 

“An ineffective hodge-podge,” Mr. Crandall 
insisted, as he unfolded a newspaper. 

“We live in a republic,” Lillian continued; 
“the lords and commons mingle in both branches 
of the legislature, and I for one am glad that it 
is so.” She longed to ask her father if he knew 
anything of Mr. Fontaine, but could not bring 
herself to do it. The old gentleman spoke sev- 
eral times of Atwater, who was a great favorite 
with him; but when Lillian was once more in 
the seclusion of her own chamber, it was not of 
Atwater she thought, but of another, whose eyes 


192 the speaker of the house 

and voice had expressed such tender sympathy, 
two nights before. She could still hear his very 
tones, and the sound of the slight cough that 
affected his throat that evening. She wondered 
if he had called at Hollis’s. He was very closely 
occupied, she well knew, but he might have 
written a line of inquiry. That would have been 
a polite and graceful attention. 

After she had retired and was falling asleep, 
she distinctly saw, lying on the hall table, in 
her brother-in-law’s house, a letter addressed to 
herself, in a hand-writing she had never seen 
before. On one corner of the large envelope 
was a cut of the State House. She gave a little 
start, and extended her hand to seize it, which 
waked her. She said to herself: 

“It will come to-morrow.” 

Tom always sent her letters after her, very 
promptly, and he would do so now. The fol- 
lowing day two letters were forwarded to her — 
letters which she did not care for. The one for 
which she would have cared had been carried 
up to her room, and overlooked. 


CHAPTER XVIII 


Lillian watched the papers, as the days passed, 
and read all the reports of the House proceed- 
ings. There was much confusion and excite- 
ment, the reasons for which she did not fully 
understand. She was interested only in what the 
speaker said and did. There were columns filled 
with wordy debates, and then a tumultuous after- 
noon session, when a decisive vote was taken. 
There was a florid account of the savage anger 
of the defeated lobby, after all was over. Fon- 
taine’s name occurred very often, and upon him 
seemed to fall the wrath of the baffled party 
in the House. 

The political consequences which his course 
would involve never occurred to Lillian; but 
she did think with anxiety of his personal safety. 
His person was dear to her — so dear! His posi- 
tion and prospects only relatively so. 

She had written to her sister about her diffi- 
culty with Tom, and Mrs. Hollis’s reply was just 
193 

The Speaker of the House 13 


194 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


what Mr. Crandall had predicted. She excused 
her husband, and at the same time sympathized 
with Lillian. At his wife’s instigation, Mr. 
Hollis wrote to Lillian a conciliatory letter, full 
of brotherly advice, and ending with an apology 
for the words which had offended her. She of 
course could not do otherwise than accept it. 

Dorothy wrote her on the same date, begging 
her to come back to the city for a week at Eas- 
ter, and explaining: — 

“The letter for you, which I forward with this, 
I found in your room on the mantel. Norah 
says it was left by a messenger, while you were 
out, the afternoon before you went away. 
Ephraim dropped it on the hall table, and the 
girl took it up to your room.’^ 

It was Fontaine’s note, which she had over- 
looked in the hurry of that evening, and which 
she had seen in her dream. 

How she dwelt upon each line and word, her 
heart making much of what was in itself so little. 
What would he think when he received no reply? 
She felt an impulse to reply to it now, telling him 
how it came to be so long neglected; but she 
feared that would be magnifying its importance. 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE I95 

One day it occurred to Lillian to write a line 
to Doctor Atwater, asking a question or two 
concerning McNulty. It had surprised her 
greatly to see by the papers that he was taking 
part in the legislative debates, within a week 
after she had seen him in peril of death. In re- 
ply to her inquiries Atwater gave an account of 
McNulty's very prompt recovery. He wrote: — 

“After you left him that night, he slept ten 
hours; then awoke weak, but rational and de- 
cidedly convalescent. The usual medical treat- 
ment was continued, and three days later he 
was back in his seat His mind retained the 
impression that a lady had visited him that 
Wednesday night. He questioned his brother and 
Mark related to him the whole matter in detail. 
The effect upon him was just the reverse of 
what one would naturally expect. Instead of 
gratitude for his saved life, he seems to feel only 
chagrin and mortification over your visit. He 
raged about it to Mark, that a lady, and you of 
all ladies, should have looked upon his degrada- 
tion. He was furious at me for bringing you to 
the Sherwood, saying he would rather have died 
than that you should have seen him in his then 


196 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


condition. Mark and Dr. Haskins have tried to 
change his view of the matter, but in vain. He 
continues to harbor a deep-seated resentment 
toward both myself and Mr. Fontaine, who, he 
knows, was also present that night. 

“There, my dear friend, I have answered your 
inquiries. Now I am hesitating whether I should 
fold and seal this letter, which is long enough, or 
say what is in my heart to say. I think I un- 
derstand you as only a mother may sometimes 
understand her own child, and your happiness 
is very dear to me. Let this be my excuse if 
I overstep my prerogative. 

“I believe you are iSved by a friend of mine, 
whom I esteem, but who, I feel sure, is not the 
man with whom you could link your life, with a 
reasonable prospect of happiness. I will not 
say just that. You might be happy, in a way, 
if you loved him, but you would have to shrink 
to his measure, spiritually. There would be no 
more growth. You have taken airy outlooks 
upon many avenues of existence, whose gates 
must be forever closed to him. I would not 
speak disparagingly of one whose solid worth 
I know; but yours should be an ideal marriage, 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


197 


into which should enter the broadest sympathy 
of taste, as well as a comprehensive oneness of 
conviction. 

“He is a man versed in law and politics; hon- 
est as a lawyer and politician can afford to be — 
even more honest, as some of his recent acts 
prove — but there description ends. His knowl- 
edge of things in general is limited. Of such 
things as literature, painting, music, and the 
ethics of the best society, it is small. Of relig- 
ion, the Bible, the history and work of the 
Church, it is zero. Upon much that enters into 
your life, and as the years pass should become 
the larger, finer part of it, he must forever look 
as an outsider. You are highly, sensitively or- 
ganized, all spirit, imagination, poetic fire. He 
is, if not of the earth, earthy, at best of the 
world, worldly. Some one ought, at any risk, 
to remind you of these things. I have taken 
the risk, and spoken dispassionately, unselfishly, 
as if I were your brother or father. 

“Three years ago, in the wild, flower-grown 
canon of the Santa Clara mountains, I laid my 
heart at your feet. You said then you liked me 
too well ever to love me. I accepted your an- 


198 THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 

swer, with a lover’s disappointment, but a man’s 
courage and philosophy. To-day I am neither 
lover nor suitor, but a friend, whose deepest pain 
it would be to see your life fettered and dwarfed, 
and robbed of its ethereal splendor. Pardon me 
if I have been presumptuous, but think on my 
words.” 

With a smile, half tender, half bitter, Lillian 
folded this strange letter and returned it to the 
envelope. The genuine, solicitous regard of the 
writer she could not doubt, but she said in her 
thoughts: 

^‘He is troubling himself gratuitously. He is 
mistaken. His surmises are groundless, and his 
warnings unnecessary.” 

It was not the dark picture of her own retro- 
gression which troubled her, but the wonder and 
doubt as to whether the limited, worldly man of 
whom Atwater wrote, really cared for her at 
all. 

Mr. Crandall claimed a good deal of his 
daughter’s attention those days. He had been 
reading a great deal during the winter, and writ- 
ing too, upon his favorite hobbies. He had 
read and written in silence, and now was quite 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


199 


willing to talk, and air his dissatisfaction with 
the existing order of things. Lillian endeavored 
to follow his dissertations intelligently, but had 
not sufficient interest in the matters which con- 
cerned him, to engage him in argument. One 
day he broke out with: 

“I wish John Atwater would come home. He 
is the only man I can bear to talk with. The 
only man I could wish to live with, day after 
day.^» 

“The doctor will soon be at home again,” 
Lillian said. “The assembly winds up on the 
tenth, and though they claim there is a large 
amount of business which will be left unfinished, 
the governor refuses to call an extra session.” 

“And he’s in the right about that,” said Mr. 
Crandall. “The sooner that troupe of mounte- 
banks is disbanded the better.” 

Lillian smiled, not spontaneously, but cynic- 
ally. She found herself criticising her own 
dearly loved father. 

“He is distracted,” she thought, “over the 
labor problem, and he has never labored, and 
does not like the individual laborer. He berates 
the public service, in all its branches, and he 


200 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


has never served the public, even by intelligent 
sympathy with its needs, and with those who 
are trying to meet them.’* Then she shook her- 
self, mentally, and looked about her with a vig- 
orous attempt to throw off this strange mood. 
She started for a walk in the bright sunshine, 
saying to herself: 

‘4 can not bear to be unhappy, and that is 
what ails me. I fear it will make me unlovely 
and unkind. O, if I only knew!” 


CHAPTER XIX 


It was on that bright March morning that 
certainty came to Edith Norgate, concerning 
Governor Townley’s feelings and intentions. 

They were standing together in Mrs. Fronde’s 
parlor. The face of the stately, white-haired 
gentleman wore a look of earnest gravity, soft- 
ened by the gentle light in his gray eyes. He 
had been a brilliant officer in the war for the 
Union, and his name was loved by brave soldiers 
throughout many states. He had fought his 
political battles with skill and honor, and from 
the high place he now filled he would doubtless 
go on to others still higher. Edith looked up 
to his fine, expressive face with an emotion of 
proud pleasure in the thought that he had offered 
her himself and his career. The glance she gave 
him was shy and womanly, and the soldier states- 
man read in it softness and surrender. 

“I do not urge an immediate answer, he said, 
‘‘unless you are very sure that the love and de- 
201 


202 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


votion I offer you is welcome. I do not forget 
that I am old and you are young. I do not wish 
you to forget it, for a week to come. That much 
time I insist upon your taking, to deliberate 
upon my offer. But remember all the time, 
dear lady, that you have at your disposal the 
loyal, tender devotion of a man who has never 
betrayed a trust nor broken a pledge. Now 
good-morning and good-bye.” 

He lifted her hand to his lips, and bowed him- 
self away. 

‘‘How perfectly right it all was!” she said to 
herself, thinking over the scene afterwards. 
“He said and did just what the most fastidious 
taste would prescribe. His appearance, too, was 
all dignity — courteous deference and dignity. 
Not one man in a thousand would have acquitted 
himself so well. One would always be proud 
and content.” 

Then she sighed twice profoundly, and her 
face for the moment looked old enough to mate 
the governor’s. Edith went home that day. 

She had intended to remain till the legislature 
adjourned; but there seemed to be no reason 
why she should tarry longer, and she wanted to 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


203 


get away from the city for the week the gover- 
nor had given her. She felt an intense desire 
to see Fontaine once more, but she would not 
go to the State House, nor send for him, as she 
had often done before. 

After she reached Hillhurst, she resolved upon 
a final maneuver. She knew her own ability 
with the pen, and she would write Bruce a warn- 
ing letter, putting forward, as a warrant, their 
life-long, intimate friendship. The epistle was 
a masterly composition, worthy of its author. 
She approached adroitly and apologetically the 
possibility of his marriage with Miss Crandall. 

‘‘I can not withhold the protest that the thought 
calls up in my mind. As a woman I know her 
better than any man could know her, on a longer 
acquaintance. You are antipodal in tempera- 
ment, diverse in taste and without resemblance 
in any particular. We hear much of unlike 
parties supplementing each other. This applies 
only to unlikeness in development. Between 
you two there is the kind of dissimilarity which 
eventually becomes antagonism. 

‘‘You might get over many things; her want 
of comprehension of your interests, and sym- 


204 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


pathy with your views. Many a man has gone 
his way undisturbed by the fact that his wife 
cared nothing for the things about which he 
cared most. But the trouble would not end so 
easily in this case. She has ideals to which she 
would attempt to shape you. She has habits of 
life and methods of thought and phases of feel- 
ing to which she would try to force a conformity, 
and failing, would assume the role either of 
censor or martyr. For she is narrow, yet not 
weak; but strong in a certain persistency. 

“You have seen the Hollis home. Lillian’s 
would be like that — elegant, cold, quiet; for she 
and her sister are in many respects alike. I 
have seen their father too. a strange man, ego- 
tistical and ill-balanced. I predict he will die 
insane. I deprecate your displeasure, Bruce; 
it costs me something to risk it, but I do so in 
the name of that cant word duty, which I hate, 
but am sometimes forced to use. 

“And now, brother mine, a word about my 
own personal concerns. The Chevalier, satis 
peur et sans reproche, has done me the greatest 
honor in his power, and I am deliberating a 
question of destiny. I am no longer a child, to 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


205 


grasp with both hands at anything which shines. 
I am waiting and thinking, but must decide be- 
fore many days. Was it you or Jack Norgate 
with whom I used to toss pennies, over every 
doubtful question Good-bye. 

‘‘Edith.’^ 

It was her final cotcp. The reasonableness 
of her warning might make him pause to think. 
The certainty that she was on the verge of a 
step which would take her beyond his reach for- 
ever, might — she did not dare to word her faint 
hope. It was so faint! 

Fontaine answered her letter at once. 

“What’s this you tell me about the Chevalier 
Bayard of western politics Now, that’s what 
I call jolly good news! When I go to congress 
— for I’ll get there yet — the senator’s lady will 
be on the ground, all ready to keep me from 
making ‘fox paws’ in my statesmanship, and to 
give me pointers on Washington forms and cer- 
emonies. The biggest end of your letter is still 
rather mazy to me, though I’ve read it twice. 
But the fact that somebody else has thought 
about my marrying Miss Crandall, gives such an 
air of reality to the matter that I grow hot and 


2o6 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


cold over it. Of course I am desperately in 
love, but I’ve not the faintest notion whether 
the dear girl has guessed it or not, or how she 
would feel about it. One thing is certain; I am 
going to find out, before I am many days older. 
With this in view, I must hasten several other 
affairs that demand attention, and guide this 
memorable assembly to a dignified close on the 
tenth.” 

This was the answer Edith received to her 
strange letter; a letter as sincere if not as disin- 
terested as the one Doctor Atwater had written 
to Miss Crandall. 

Atwater had said he was neither lover nor 
suitor, and he said it with truth. Lillian s an- 
swer of three years before had come from her 
frank, clear soul, and he could make no mistake 
about it. He had never seen a sign that her 
feelings had changed or ever could change, and 
with men, love starves when hope is dead. 

Lillian sent no reply to his long letter, and 
indeed he expected none. He felt sure that un- 
der no circumstances would that letter ever be 
referred to by either. One bleak east-windy 
afternoon, some three days after the close of the 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


207 


assembly, she got the letter from her desk, and 
read it again. 

“There would be an end of all growth/^ Other 
sentences like that met her eyes. Perhaps it 
was all true, but what did it matter She and 
Robert Bruce Fontaine were miles and miles 
apart, and would be thus always! The hungry 
cry of her heart was for a sight of him; the 
sound of his voice; the sense of his nearness. 

Her father was smoking and writing in his 
room. She grew intolerably lonely. There was 
no one of her friends or acquaintances in the 
town whom she wished to see, but she must go 
somewhere, do something. Out near the fac- 
tories lived several English families, whom she 
had come to know through the church. They 
were young couples, each with a cottage full of 
children. She liked to chat awhile with those 
cheery, busy mothers, and to lend them a little 
timely help now and then, with her needle or 
her purse. She resolved to pay her factory 
friends a visit that afternoon, and take a bag of 
goodies to the little folks. 

The walk and the calls were a diversion; but 
on the way home her depression returned with 


2o8 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


increased power. It began to rain, and she had 
no umbrella or other suitable protection, but she 
took a dreary satisfaction in her own phys- 
ical discomfort, as she trudged slowly home- 
ward. 

She had left the mills and ascended a hill which 
overlooked the town. Her home was nearly a 
mile distant. A train which had been puffing 
steam and ringing its bell at the depot on her 
left, pulled out and went thundering away east- 
ward. The suggestion of life and hope and 
courage inseparable from a flying express-train, 
was lost upon her. She was only dull and spirit- 
less and dead tired with walking in this rain. 
At home there would be food and warmth and 
sleep; and that was what she would go on liv- 
ing for. 

She turned a corner and came under an elec- 
tric globe. A tall man with an umbrella crossed 
the street from the opposite direction and passed 
her. He strode on for a few steps, then paused 
and glanced backward. He caught a glimpse of 
her face, with its look of melancholy. She saw 
him as he turned, and her heart gave a great 
leap. Surprise overpowered her; she stepped 

The Speaker of the House 14 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


209 


quickly forward, saying, almost under her 
breath: 

‘‘O, Robert!^’ He heard her by the motion 
of her lips. He was close beside her in an in- 
stant, saying as he caught her hand in his: 
“Lillian, Lillian ! Why did you call me that?^^ 
She was under his umbrella, her hand in his 
arm, still tightly held. 

“Lillian, darling, why did you call me so?^' 
“Because it is your name, and I like it.^' 

“You like it! You have thought about my 
name, and about me!’* he went on breathlessly. 
“O, I could kiss your feet! You are thoroughly 
wet, my child. No mackintosh or umbrella, 
and walking slowly. I saw you a long way off, 
but wasn’t sure till the light struck you full.” 

He was thoughtlessly walking at a pace she 
could hardly keep step with. 

“But how odd to meet you in this way,” she 
gasped, “as if you had come down with the rain! 
Where are you going.?” 

“I am taking you home, wherever that is. I 
have not been in this town before in five years, 
and I’ve no earthly business in it now, only to 
see the girl I love, and hear her call me Robert.” 


210 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


His voice was full to breaking, with his heart’s 
tenderness. 

“And you came, she said, “on that train that 
passed me back there, and that I hatedr^ 

They both broke into a nervous laugh over 
the inconsequent remark. And then he noticed 
her dripping dress again, and her thin boots with 
only the protection of sandals. 

“This is the way you girls take care of your- 
selves! O, I wish I dare pick you up and carry 
you! Don’t be frightened, dear, if I talk like a 
crazy man. Lillian, I have been wild about 
you for weeks! I don’t know how I stood it 
out to the end, through all that distracting hub- 
bub in the House, when the thought of some- 
thing about you, your eyes or your hair, or the 
crook of your little finger haunted me every mo- 
ment. And you are not bored by what I say — 
not angry or sorry because I love you so.^” 

She lifted to his face a look which silenced him 
for very rapture. 

On the threshold of her home, she called her- 
self together, and conducted decorously indoors 
the guest she had found in the rain, and intro- 
duced him to her father. Before the dampness 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


2II 


was out of Lillian’s crinkled hair, Mr. Crandall 
knew that he must give up his child 

It is irrelevant to this narrative, just what his 
estimate of Mr. Fontaine might have been. 
That he considered him genuine, was evinced by 
his answer, when on the following day his con- 
sent was formally asked. 

“When a child of mine loves, nothing could 
justify me in intruding objections, but the clink 
of base metal. 


CHAPTER XX 


During the two days which Mr. Fontaine spent 
with his betrothed, they were constantly to- 
gether, and except at meal hours, alone together. 

“Why don’t you urge me to remain longer?’^ 
Bruce asked Lillian, when on the third evening 
he told her of his purpose to go to the hotel for 
a few hours sleep, and then take the midnight 
train for the capital. 

“Are you tired of me.?^^ 

“No,” she replied, “but you know when you 
ought to go; and two whole dear days are per- 
haps long enough for a lover’s visit. You have 
filled me full of happiness, Robert, and when you 
are gone I shall have such memories!” 

** “What will you remember, dear?” 

“Such a man to ask questions! Why, I will 
think of your looks and tones, and the things 
you have said, or half said — for you leave your 
sentences unfinished in the oddest way — and of 
sweet moments like this — so close I can hear 

your heart beat and feel your breath.” 

212 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


213 


“We haven't talked much.*^ 

“Nor made any plans, and she laughed softly. 

“Except the one grand plan which includes 
all others. We are to be married in May. 
Lillian, one year from to-day you will have 
been my wife for ten months. You will be 
quite used to me then, and perhaps a trifle weary 
of me. For I am not much of a fellow, after 
all.»» 

“You are the only man in the world who 
could have taken possession of my entire being, 
spirit, thought and sense. I don’t know much 
about you, Robert. I am half frightened when 
I think that it is less than ninety days since I 
first saw you. But God was good, to let us 
come together. If we were to part to-night, and 
never meet again, I should know that I had 
tasted the dearest bliss of life, and be thankful.*^ 

Those were almost the last words she said to 
him. She tried to speak of other things, but he 
would smother the words on her lips with his 
kisses. 

Fontaine returned to the capital on Saturday 
forenoon. After he had lunched, he went over 
to the State House for some papers he had left 


214 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


in the speaker’s desk, and while there he called 
upon Governor Townley, in his private office. 
The latter met him with exuberant cordiality, 
and before he departed, told him of his engage- 
ment and claimed his congratulations. Edith 
had entirely disabused the governor’s mind of 
the idea that his acceptance meant Fontaine’s 
disappointment. She was broad and honest in 
that matter, where some women would have 
been petty and false. 

‘‘Miss Norgate is a very warm friend of yours, 
and I confess to having been a little afraid of 
you at one time,” said the complacent governor. 
And Bruce laughingly responded: 

“At all events, the time for such fears should 
be forever past. Your confidence, governor, 
shall be repaid in kind. I expect in a few weeks 
to marry Miss Lillian Crandall.” 

The governor was profuse in expressions of 
pleased surprise, compliments and good wishes. 
Fontaine interrupted him to say that it would 
be his own first duty and pleasure, to assist in 
shaping affairs in the party so that when the 
senatorial contest should occur, two years hence. 
Governor Townley would be the man upon whom 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


215 


the lot would fall. To this his excellency re- 
sponded, that it would give him great pleasure 
to allow the lieutenant governor to serve out his 
unexpired term of office; and he had no doubt 
Colonel Spooner would be entirely willing to do 
so. Then the two men shook hands and par- 
ted. 

On Sunday morning Mr. Fontaine went to 
church, as many a man has gone before, chiefly 
because it would please the woman he loved. 
He reached St. Stephen’s a little late, and the 
service had begun when he entered. A gowned 
usher conducted him to a pew already occupied 
by a young girl of sixteen and a younger boy. 
The girl handed him her prayer-book open at 
the Jubilate, and took’andther herself; he fol- 
lowed the service without difficulty to the end 
of the prayer. When the rector began to in- 
tone the Commandments, he was all at sea. 
The rosy cheeked girl saw it, and exchanged 
books with him. At the Gospel and Epistle she 
changed again. 

“It’s a puzzle how anybody can keep the run 
of this,’’ he said to himself, and added with a 
glow at his heart: 


2i6 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


“It will be easy to learn, when Lillian is the 
teacher.” 

How happy he was that day! Every impulse 
and aspiration was toward the highest and best. 
Edwin Booth is remembered to have uttered 
this aphorism: 

“No man can be called truly happy, till he is 
able to rejoice in the prosperity of his enemies.” 

If Bruce Fontaine thought of his enemies that 
day, as he walked the city streets, it was with 
the utmost kindness and good-will. He could 
have rejoiced in their prosperity. He looked 
forward to his future with glad anticipation, and 
then turned his thoughts to the past, recalling 
the impulsive boy who had married Louise 
Lombard, bewildered by the charm of her blonde 
beauty, and oblivious to her last hour that she 
was but a spoiled, petulant, wayward child. In 
the afternoon he went out to Meredith Heights, 
the sacred place where, amid firs and cedars 
and memorials in marble and bronze, the dead 
take their long rest. Standing by the white 
stone that bore the name of his girl-wife, he 
thought: 

“It is not difficult to believe in a future life. 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


217 


when a man remembers how many different lives 
are his here on earth. 

As the evening approached, he thought of 
Atwater and determined to see him. The doc- 
tor was spending a few days with a scientific 
friend, engaged upon one or two interesting ex- 
periments in microscopy and chemistry. Over 
a week had elapsed since the end of the legisla- 
tive session. He knew when Fontaine left the 
city, and guessed whither he had gone. He de- 
layed his own return to Ellersport from day to 
day, he hardly knew why. He had seen Fon- 
taine that morning at church; the latter did not 
happen to see him, and he let his old friend go 
his way, without giving him a sign of recogni- 
tion or greeting. 

Fontaine hunted him up that Sunday even- 
ing. With boyish frankness he spoke of his en- 
gagement, before he loosed the doctor’s hand, 
and was congratulated in the most proper and 
fitting words that any man could have chosen. 
Atwater was cordiality itself and did not let the 
conversation flag for an instant, while the 
speaker remained. The)^ talked of the events 
of the past winter, of the governor’s prospective 


2i8 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


marriage, of McNulty and his unaccountable 
moods and actions. Fontaine led Atwater to 
speak of his scientific studies, and began to per- 
ceive, for the first time in his life, what a living 
delight a purely intellectual pursuit may be- 
come. They spoke of Mr. Crandall, Fontaine 
tolerantly, the other sympathetically. Not till 
his visitor rose to go, did Atwater recur to the 
subject uppermost in the thoughts of both. Then 
he said; . 

“You have won a prize, Bruce; it is to be 
hoped you know how to value it. There is no 
animal so selfish and stupid as the human male; 
and sentiments which would hardly bear the 
daylight might be thought fine enough, by one 
of our blundering species, to match those of a 
girl like Lillian.” 

The words sounded cynical and harsh. Fon- 
taine waited a little before he said, in a voice 
hardly like his own; 

“I do not pretend to be good enough for her, 
or to entirely understand her. But she loves 
me, and I could lay down my life in gratitude 
for that, I have a strange feeling of wishing 
to make some great sacrifice, because — I hardly 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


219 


know why, unless because it would make me 
more like the Christ she worships.” 

He had, for an instant, uncovered the secret 
place of his soul, and was ashamed that he had 
done so. He turned away quickly, but not be- 
fore Atwater had given him a look of perfect 
comprehension. At the door they shook hands, 
a little lingeringly and Fontaine started down 
street with his usual brisk step and manly bear- 
ing, a figure to challenge attention among a 
hundred. 

It was snowing heavily again, and the falling 
flakes made a dangerous coating for the ice be- 
neath. Just as he reached his hotel, a sleigh 
drawn by two black horses dashed up to the 
curb, in front of the main entrance, and a tall, 
active man alighted. His face, hidden by the 
broad collar of his ulster, could not be seen, but 
there was a familiar look about the lithe, graceful 
figure. The horses tossd their smoking heads and 
pawed the hard street, and a colored boy came 
running, in answer to a whistle from the ulster, 
and took them by the bits. Their driver entered 
the hotel, just in advance of Mr. Fontaine, and 
going direct to the clerk, he made a few hurried 


220 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


inquiries. Bruce was near enough to hear the 
replies. 

“Yes, Mr. Fontaine is in the city. He still 
has rooms here, but went out an hour or so ago. 
Ah, there he is, now.” 

The young man turned quickly, and met Fon- 
taine with a low ejaculation of joy, or at least 
of relief. It was Mark McNulty, and he was in 
a state of strong excitement. 

“I am so glad to find you!” he said. “My 
brother Swithin — he is drinking again, heavily. 
If he is let alone, he will be where he was a 
month ago, and then nothing can save him. Fve 
hunted him for two days, and came upon him 
to-night, at a place on Tower Street. Ferd 
Slicker and Jim Dent were with him — low 
wretches, whom Fd like to kill! I want you to 
help me get him away from them.” 

“I’ll help you cheerfully, all I can” said Fon- 
taine, “but I hardly know how to go about it. 
Mack has thrown me over, utterly. I used to 
have some influence with him but not lately. 
The other two men I would have to knock down 
and walk over. Dent was the State House cus- 
todian, whom I removed. He would as soon 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


221 


shoot me as not, but is a great coward. Where 
shall we look for Swithin now.? There is no 
time to lose.” 

“They have gone to a private dive that Slicker 
has something to do with. It is south of Cap- 
itol Square. I shadowed them there this even- 
ing; then I got this team. It is asking a great 
deal of you, Mr. Fontaine, but you are a strong 
man, and so am I. We must get my brother 
away, if we have to do it by force. I can take 
care of him, when I get him into my rooms.” 

The wind was rising, and Fontaine went up 
stairs for a heavy coat, like Mark’s. Then the 
two went out to the sleigh together. 

“We’ll take this bub coon with us, I think,” 
said Mark. “There’s no telling where we may 
have to go or stop, and he will be useful at the 
horses’ heads.” 

“The little devil will freeze,” said Fontaine; 
“he’s not half clad.” 

“O, I’se all right,” said the darky. “’Tain’t 
col’ much. Ride all night fer a quarter.” 

“Do you know the town.?” 

“You bet! Yous can shake me anywhers, 
w’enever yous troo wid me, an’ I kin shin home.” 


222 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


^‘Wait; I’ve a plaid in my room/^ said Fon- 
taine. ‘‘We’ll pin him up in that.” 

He went back into the hotel with long, fleet 
steps, and soon returned with the plaid, which 
he proceeded to arrange, hood-fashion, over the 
colored boy’s head and around his body, fasten- 
ing it in place with the clasp-pins which were 
sticking in it. It was the kind act of a gentle 
heart. Mark McNulty remembers it, when he 
thinks of that night. 

They got into the sleigh, with the little negro 
behind, and Mark gathered up the reins and 
turned the horses’ heads toward Capitol Square, 
They had driven perhaps three blocks, when a 
two-seated sleigh, containing four men, crossed 
the street in front of them. 

“There’s our crowd !” exclaimed Mark. “They 
have something new on foot.” He turned when 
they turned, and followed them. Without 
speaking, he tracked them for an hour through 
the city streets. They had a hired team and 
driver, and were getting their money’s worth 
out of the rig, before dismissing it. 

Their winding, zig-zag course took them down 
town into questionable quarters, Mark still keep- 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


223 


ing them in sight. They were all too much in- 
toxicated to perceive that they were followed. 
They stopped at length, where the lights shone 
out from one of the notorious buildings of the 
city, vaudeville play-house, dance hall and gin- 
mill combined. The three men got out of the 
sleigh lumberingly, and swaggered toward the 
arched entrance, when McNulty, who was on 
the outside, felt himself seized by the arm and 
drawn backward. 

“Hello! Mark, me lad, not quite so fast,^^ he 
said. 

“Come,Swithin,I want you to drive with me,^^ 
Mark said persuadingly, yet firmly. 

“Who the hell are you.^^” asked Slicker, squar- 
ing himself between them and their sleigh. 

“I am his brother, and I am going to take him 
home/^ 

McNulty tried to free himself from Mark’s 
hold, and then Fontaine’s strong grasp was laid 
upon him, and he was shoved and half lifted 
into the waiting sleigh. Just then Dent recog- 
nized Fontaine. He aimed a drunken blow at 
him, which missed, then ended a string of 
shocking oaths with the question: 

The Speaker of the House 15 


224 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


“Whose brother are you?’^ 

Fontaine had McNulty on the seat in a grasp 
of steel. He was elated over his capture, and 
gave a little laugh of triumph, as he answered: 

“I am every man’s brother — yours, Jim Dent, 
if you will.” 

Mark’s hand was on the dash-board, his foot 
on the fender of the sleigh, when quick as a 
flash Dent snatched the reins and sent them fly- 
ing over the horses’ heads, at the same moment 
giving the animal nearest him a brutal kick. 
The frightened team flung off the little negro 
like a leaf, and darted away, swift and uncon- 
trolled as the wild night wind! The inevitable 
came soon. At the first turn the sleigh struck a 
telegraph tree, and the two men were hurled into 
the street. The one rolled like am inanimate bun- 
dle out of harm’s way; the other fell, stunned 
and helpless, in the track of a cable-car, flying 
over a grade. 

In the black throng of people, who, a few 
minutes later moaned and sobbed and shuddered 
over a man’s form lying on the snow, some one 
was heard to say: 

“I wonder if God cares, when a thing like this 
has to happen!” 



The two men were hurled into the street. 


' • 






m • 







> 


V - • >'-*1 



CHAPTER XXI 

Lillian asleep, miles and miles away, heard in 
her dreams aery of mortal pain, and started up 
bewildered, calling out in the darkness: 

“Robert! Robert! where are you?” 

She lay awake through the long night, trem- 
bling with fear and dread. At dawn a telegram 
came from Doctor Atwater. 

“Come at once. Fontaine has met with an 
accident.” 

Two hours later she and her father were on 
their way to the city. At a certain point on the 
road, news-boys boarded the train, with the 
morning papers; and with the cruel sun shining 
full on the page, Lillian read the glaring head- 
lines: 

“Appalling accident. Hon. R. B. Fontaine 
fatally injured.” 

Mr. Crandall took the paper out of her shak- 
ing hand, pulled down the window-shade and 
227 


228 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


held his daughter’s face against his breast, for 
the remainder of the journey. 

She was not permitted to see her lover alive. 
An hour before she reached the city, he breathed 
his last painful breath in the arms of poor Mark 
McNulty. 

In the night he regained consciousness for a 
time, and they heard him say faintly: 

“Dear little girl! God help her!” 

Atwater stooped and kissed him like a woman. 

“Bruce,” said he, “you know you are dying.?” 

The other nodded. 

“Mr. Lawrence, the rector of St. Stephen’s, is 
here.” Fontaine looked up quickly, and asked: 

“Would he baptize me.?” 

“Yes, gladly, if you desire it.” 

“I do. It would please her.” 

When asked concerning his preparation, he 
replied: 

“I repent of all my sins, and believe in the 
eternal goodness of God.” 

The solemn rite was quickly performed. He 
did not attempt to follow the Creed, but he re- 
peated the Lord’s Prayer distinctly to the end. 
Then the consecrated bread and wine passed his 
lips for the first time and the last. 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


229 


Atwater forgot nothing. When Mr. Crandall 
and his daughter reached the city, the Hollis 
carriage was at the depot awaiting them. Lil- 
lian was received by Dorothy and Mrs. Colby. 
She could not go direct to the hotel, where he 
was. There was a throng of people there. The 
whole city was shocked and curious. Reporters 
were coming and going. They had to tell her 
everything! She must go home with her sister. 
In the evening they would take her to see him. 
She obeyed silently, tearlessly. They gave her 
food and put her to bed, and soothed her with 
infinite tenderness. She was like one driven 
out of a burning house, dazed and shivering, 
into the darkness of the night. 

Just after nightfall they drove with her to the 
Helicon House, and led her quickly to the cham- 
ber of death. The sight of his face in its sublime 
beauty and peace called forth no outburst, but 
seemed to lift her out of herself and fill her with 
a silent, wondering ecstasy. She looked as long 
as she pleased; and, after she had covered the 
frozen hands with hers, and chilled her soft 
cheek against the ice of his, it was not into 
Dorothy’s arms or her father’s that she cast her- 


230 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


self; but it was to Atwater, the friend who un- 
derstood her like a mother, that she turned with 
the piteous cry: 

“O, John, my heart is broken 

Her sorrow was very great and very lasting; 
but it was easier to bear and to behold, than 
the remorseful agony ofSwithin McNulty. Be- 
fore the ambulance came that bore Fontaine 
from the scene of the disaster, he was sober and 
sane, with a horrified comprehension of all that 
had occurred. His abused system collapsed 
under the shock of this dreadful event, with 
which he was so painfully connected. He lay 
ill with brain fever, till his recovery was despaired 
of; but he rallied at length, and came back to 
life and a redeemed manhood. When he again 
appeared among men he was altered in look 
and manner, and liberated forever from the 
thralldom of his baser appetites. 

Three years after Fontaine’s death, Atwater, 
unexpectedly to himself and to her, asked Lillian 
again to be his wife, and she consented. 

“I have been such a trouble to you, with my 
illness and worries; and you have been so bound- 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


231 


lessly good to me! You could take care of me 
easier, that way, I know — and papa would be 
overjoyed/^ 

Such was the form of her consent. 

It is the Fourth of March, and a new admin- 
istration is inaugurated. As usual there is a 
ball in a vast room of the public buildings at 
Washington. The scene is a brilliant one — 
decorations of blue and gold, ropes of smilax, 
banks of roses, a uniformed band, a shining 
floor and a throng of high-strung men and ladies 
— light, fragrance and beauty everywhere. 

Opening off the spendid dancing-floor, through 
flag-draped arches, are several luxurious little 
withdrawing rooms, which, after the grand 
march, fill with people who do not choose to 
dance. In one of them stands a noticeable 
group. The central figure is a handsome blonde 
woman looking under thirty-five, dressed in tur- 
quoise brocade, with a bunch of amber-colored 
orchids at her belt. She is distinguished in 
society for her wit, intelligence and good-nature, 
and is spoken of as the beautiful Mrs. Townley, 
wife of a western senator. She is talking spir- 


232 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


itedly with those about her, and her few fine 
diamonds are matched by her shining eyes. Not 
far away stands the senator himself, conversing 
with a friend. Some one asks the lady: 

“Who is the gentleman speaking to your hus- 
band — the tall man with the young-looking face 
and gray hair?^’ 

“That,” she replies, “is Judge McNulty, the 
new congressman from our ninth district. And 
there,” she continued, with a little gesture of 
surprise, “are some other people from my State. 
I must go and speak to them.'’ Passing under 
the flags are the couple to whom she refers — 
Doctor and Mrs. Atwater. A few moments later 
Edith is speaking to Lillian and hearing her say: 

“Yes, we are on our way home, after a five 
months’ absence. Last autumn my husband 
talked up a weak chest for me, just to give me 
the most delightful winter in the south, loitering 
along the Gulf coast and cruising among the 
Antilles. It is a little early to return; but we 
will remain a month in Washington and then fol- 
low the spring northward. Yes, my father ac- 
companied us on our journeyings. Yonder he 
stands, talking with an old friend, Professor 
Ziemsen of the Smithsonian.” 


THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE 


233 


Mrs. Townley looks in the direction indicated 
and remarks that Mr. Crandall is looking well. 
He does indeed seem rejuvenated. His rugged 
Carlylean face has a healthy color, and it seems 
probable that for another twenty years he will 
enjoy life, in his own carping, sarcastic yet gen- 
uinely human way. 

An hour passes, and Atwater asks: 

“Are you tired, dear one.^ Shall we go now.^^' 
And Lillian replies; 

“O, no, not quite yet. It is lovely here, and 
the music is delicious!” 

The tall, elegant figure wearing velvet and 
rubies, standing in a graceful, motionless pose, 
is one to challenge admiring notice. Many turn 
to look again, but she is utterly unconscious. 
A soft smile touches her lips; a dreamy light is 
in her eyes. She sees another inaugural ball, 
in a western capital, far away. She is living 
over another festival night — the night ever dearly 
memorable, when she met and danced with the 
Speaker of the House. 


THE END. 



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U Contains Only Sterling Books, Beautifully 
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ITho JPlowers of the A.merlcan 

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TIE TEI IIEIT FIEPI lOVELS 

Translated by Master Hands. 

•1: SucSTmETTI I -ByAL.XAHD.. D„MAS.Fn^ 

l>. SAPPHO By Alphonse Daudet 

4, A MAN OF HONOR By Octave Feuillet 

5. MADAME BOV ARY By Gustave Flaubert 

0. MAUPRAT By George Sand 

7. A LIFE’S DECEIT By the Brothers Goncourt 

8. NOTRE CHIUR” By Guy de Maupassant 

9. THE CHOUANS By Honore de Balzac 

10, PIERRE ET JEAN By Guy de Maupassant 

For full Lists of our French Translations and of our HIGH 
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Readers of good literature are advised to procure LaibT> & Lee’s publica- 
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Th6 * * * 
Library =■= 
of Choice 
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% Choice in Reading Matter. % % He ^ The 

He He Choice in Illustrations. He He He Library 
Choice in Type, Paper and Binding. of Choice 
H< He Tasteful and Perfect. He eJe Fiction. 


Laird & Lee s LATEST ADDITIONS 

To this UNRIVALLED SERIES: 

COPYRIGHTED NOVELS 


By AMERBCAN AUTHORS of Acknowledged Merit. 

WOMEN MUST WEEP By Edgar Fawcett 

A BAROAIN IN SOULS By E. df Lancey Pierson 

THE BLUE SCARAB By David Graham Adee 

A GOLDEN PILGRIMAGE. ..By the Marquise Clara Lanza 

ADVENTURES OF AN EVANGELIST By Nelson Ayres 

A. D. 2000 By Lieut. A. M. Fuller, U. S. A 

THE RICH MAN’S FOOI By Robert C. Givins 

Our lists of translations froin Famous French and Ger7nan 
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Ge7teral Catalogue y sent free upon demand. 

Readers of good literature are advised to procure Laird & 
Lee’s Publications, as they are printed in large type on excellent 
paper, profusely illustrated, and bound in solid and attractive 
covers. 

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